My top TEN vegetables

You could be harvesting home-grown salad leaves and vegetables within months if you sow seeds now. Here Monty Don picks his favourite easy-to-grow crops and tells you how to plant and nurture them for a constant supply of the best-tasting produce...

If you are going to the trouble of creating a vegetable plot and growing your own produce, it makes sense to focus on taste and health. The kitchen should dictate what is in the garden, rather than the garden deciding what is on your plate, so always grow what you love to eat. However, I have found the vegetables here to be essential both in my garden and my kitchen... CARROTS

These can be sown at any time between early spring and mid-summer as long as the soil is warm. Sow thinly, either in shallow drills or broadcasted (scattered) across the surface before lightly raking. Carrots are in the same family as parsnips, parsley and celery and this group is best grown as part of a rotation that follows brassicas such as cabbage and purple sprouting broccoli. The ground should be well dug but not have manure or compost added during the previous year, as this can cause the carrots to split. Do not add any fertiliser either, as the result would be extra-vigorous growth above ground at the expense of the roots. ‘Chantenay’, ‘Berlicum’ and ‘Autumn King’ types are varieties you would expect to harvest in autumn and can have the biggest roots.

ROCKET

Rocket is a coolweather plant and bolts (when a plant prematurely runs to seed) at the first hint of heat or drought. However, it is the easiest and fastest salad crop to grow and will do just as well in a pot or window box as in the garden. Sow the seeds directly into shallow drills (long grooves) in the soil or in peat-free seed compost in plugs or seed trays. Transplant into larger plugs when they have ‘true’ leaves (not the first seed leaves) and plant out into their final growing position after about three weeks. Some shade and plenty of water will delay bolting.

CHARD

Versatile, robust and delicious, no other vegetable gleams like chard. A healthy leaf is as lacquered and glossy as holly, and the stem buffed to the point it looks molten. Rhubarb chard has green leaves and red stalks and rainbow chard (below) comes with coloured stems of yellow, orange, pink and red. But once cooked, all taste similar and for reliability I’d opt for the green leaves and white stems of Swiss chard.

I sow the first batch about now and harvest them regularly when the leaves are young and tender. Then I do a sowing in early August that will provide plants to overwinter for harvesting the following spring. The seeds can be sown directly into the ground but I sow them in plugs or blocks, one seed per unit, growing them on and hardening off before planting out at 20cm spacing. We shred the green leaves from the stalks and use them exactly like spinach, and the stems are good cooked in water or stock and served with oil and lemon or a béchamel sauce.

The leaves and stalks chopped up make a great filling for a flan.

LETTUCE

I love salad leaves and it’s easy to grow them in succession so you can cut fresh leaves every day of the year. Butterhead lettuces have flat, rounded heads and soft leaves. Looseleaf lettuce consists of leaves which can be picked individually or by cutting the whole lot. They will regrow and are usually good for three pickings from the same plant. Sow half a packet of seeds and when they have germinated and you have done the first thinning to 2.5cm apart, sow the rest of the packet. Thin the growing lettuce until they are 15-20cm apart. Continue this between April and August and you’ll have a supply of salad leaves from the end of May to November.

KALE

If I only grew one brassica, then it would be this. Black Tuscan kale, or cavolo nero (below right), is a permanent fixture in my patch. Curly kale (above) is also a popular variety, with a mild, sweet taste. The plants can be harvested for ten months of the year, and they also improve after a frost. Seeds can be sown between now and early August but take 12-16 weeks to mature. The final spacing of each plant should be 60-90cm so I always grow a crop of salad leaves in between as by the time the kale has grown large, the salad leaves are over. I sow the seeds in a seed tray or plugs in early spring with a couple of extra sowings at monthly intervals. The seedlings must be pricked out into pots if germinated in seed trays before planting out into their final position in ground that has ideally previously grown a leguminous crop such as peas or beans.

COURGETTES

I sow my courgettes in large plugs or small pots, two to each, removing the weaker of the two if both germinate. They need some heat to germinate so put the pots in a greenhouse or above a radiator. By June the soil should be warm enough to sow directly where they are to grow, especially if you put a homemade cloche made out of a cut-off plastic bottle over them. First prick the seedlings out into a larger pot – at least 7.5cm in diameter – and harden off before planting out after the last risk of frost. They thrive in rich soil with lots of water so add plenty of compost before planting. Harvest as soon as they are big enough to handle – it’s better to have half a dozen small ones than one or two larger ones as they taste better, and harvesting stimulates the plant to produce more.

NEW POTATOES

Maincrop potatoes are usually easier to buy in the shops, but new potatoes quickly lose their sweetness once harvested so your own, eaten fresh, are much nicer. You can get 1st and 2nd earlies (which indicates when they crop, so 1st earlies are ready first, usually around June) – both are ‘new’ potatoes, but 2nd earlies store better and overlap with early maincrop, which as the name suggests is the first crop of the main growing season. My favourite varieties are ‘Charlotte’ and ‘Nicola’, both of which are waxy, and the floury ‘Winston’. To grow them, make a hole with a dibber and bury the seed potato so it’s covered. I grow them in a grid 45cm apart but you can do so in rows with each seed 30cm apart and 60cm between rows. Water well when flowers appear and they will be ready to harvest shortly after.

FRENCH BEANS

Dwarf or French beans are tender (that is, easily damaged by frost) and grow best between the middle of May and October. But they are very prolific and a few plants will give you a supply of fresh bean pods for months. If I’m sowing direct into the soil, I do so in double rows 20cm apart and with 45cm between each double row and about 10cm between each bean. If I’m planting out indoor-raised seedlings, I do so in blocks with 20cm between each plant. I have grown a pretty wide selection and keep coming back to the yellow and purple varieties like ‘Golden Sands’ French bean and ‘Annabel’ dwarf. Purple dwarf beans can withstand colder weather so are good for a late sowing that will crop well into autumn.

BROAD BEANS

When I was a child we ate so many broad beans that were too big and floury, so now it’s a joy to have them when they’re young and tender. You can sow in October for a late May harvest, or now and into early May for summer crops. Place the beans 20cm apart, in a double row about 30cm apart, with space between the double rows to walk. They’ll need support (string tied between canes) once they reach about 90cm tall. Pull the plants up in July and use the ground for a brassica crop.

TOMATOES

A ripe tomato eaten warm from the sun is the real thing, and any chilled supermarket alternative is an imposter. Sow the seeds now in seed trays, prick out the seedlings (see How To Grow Plants From Seed on p21) into pots and plant them outside in June into a sunny spot with rich soil or in a good-sized pot. Bush tomatoes can be left to grow, but cordon plants (which grow vertically) should be planted 45cm apart in rows, and will need to be supported by a strong cane. My favourite varieties include ‘Gardeners Delight’ (cherry), ‘Shirley’ (disease-resistant), and ‘Oxheart’ (beefsteak, right).