8 mini veg patch containers to try
1 LEAFY GREENS AND PEAS
This pot can be started off with mangetout peas, which are easy to sow now and plant out. Add a little cane support or site against a trellis to help your peas cling. If you want some colour, instead of green try mangetout ‘Golden Sweet’ in bright yellow from www.chilternseeds.co.uk. Teaming up with the mangetout is some chard and perpetual spinach, both of which can be sown thinly, directly. This lovely potted crop collection can cope with a bit of shade in summer, too.
TOP TIP Once your peas have stopped cropping, remove the plant to leave more room for your chard and spinach to develop.
2 ITALIAN STYLE
This is a classic combo featuring all your favourite Italian cooking ingredients – tomatoes, basil and thyme. These will all sit perfectly in a pot together as each doesn’t need acres of room. Sow tomatoes straight away if you haven’t already, or plant out plugs now, adding basil plants in the middle and thyme at the edges to spill over as a permanent feature. Feed and water well and enjoy your very own pizza in a pot!
TOP TIP Add French marigolds to add colour as companion planting.
3 BEANS AND COURGETTES
If you’ve got a long trellis planter up against a sunny wall and you’re not sure what to put in it, why not try this space-saving way of growing two large crops at once? Plant your runner beans at the back now, then add two or three courgette plants at the front once the beans are growing nicely up the trellis. Feed and water well through summer. A beautiful planter with the bonus of tasty crops to boot! TOP TIP Why not try sweet peas in among the beans too?
4 BASKET SALAD AND HERB BAR
All your herbs and salads in one place – no need to dedicate extra space to herbs, here they’re all tucked away on high, planted handily at picking level! Wire three hanging baskets together, then line with moss and fill with multi-purpose compost. Planted here are basil, golden thyme, parsley, yellow chard and various lettuces including ‘Freckles’.
TOP TIP Add some extra purple-toned colour with chives, purple-leaved basil and sage.
5 CURRY IN A POT
Why not have all the ingredients of the nation’s favourite dish at your fingertips? It’s true that the rice and meat part of a curry may be stretching it a little in your own garden, but everything else near enough can be grown just outside the back door. Sometimes it pays to experiment with something new! Planted here are garlic, dwarf peas, coriander, fennel and onion. TOP TIP Buy ready-grown plants from good garden centres to speed things along.
6 ONE STOP SHOP
This pot has it all going on, with thyme, purple sage, cut-and-come-again lettuce, kale, cabbage and lemon balm. All in one pot you can pick off sprigs of herbs to add to stews or make herbal teas with, while next door to them grow all the greens you need for salads and stews. This fab foliage pot looks good on its own taking pride of place on the patio, but you could site it among your more colourful containers to help it stand out.
TOP TIP Finish cropping the le uce, cabbage and kale, then let the herbs grow or replant with another crop of winter chard or kale.
7 STYLISH AND TASTY
Get yourself an old oil drum container and spray it silver for this trendy option. Carrot growers (such as GN’s Medwyn Williams and Terry Walton) often use drums on their allotments, but this way your pot will still look pleasing to the eye on your patio. Planted here are carrots, onions and, for leafy looks, ruby chard.
TOP TIP Keep picking chard leaves, which will continue cropping for you while you wait for your onions and carrots to grow.
8 SUMMER SERVINGS
This recycled wash tub planter is nice and roomy enough for all these lovely summer salad crops. Spring onions are going in among ‘Cos’ lettuce, tumbling, compact bush tomato ‘Losetto’ and calendula for colour and pollinator power. Your spring onions and lettuce can be harvested quickly, resown and replanted several times over while you wait for the tasty tomatoes later in summer!
TOP TIP Have a barbecue in the garden and pick all your fresh salad ingredients in front of the guests – they’ll be most impressed!