Quick & easy harvests
You’ll be harvesting these crops in as little as four weeks, and by sowing and picking little and often you’ll have fresh veg all summer and into autumn
Pick them young
Harvesting veg when they’re young means they’re ready sooner and, if you’ve sown regularly, you’ll get bigger overall harvests, as you’ll fit more into a season. Pick beans at 8cm long, salad leaves when tiny and tender, and pull up baby carrots, radishes and beetroot.
Double your harvests
Crops that give repeated pickings are a must. Cut-and-come-again lettuce leaves do just that, but hearting and loose-leaf types can also give you an extra crop – when you harvest, leave a generous stump and cut a cross in it. New leaves will sprout from the stump.
Keep them cropping
Veg such as beans, courgettes and chard can be harvested all summer long – but only if you keep picking them regularly. Left alone, they’ll soon stop producing and start to run to seed. The younger you pick, the more they’ll produce, too.
Pickings for autumn
All of these veg will keep going until the first frosts, but some will continue cropping even longer. Chard and rocket will carry on until next spring with a little protection – just sow in mid to late summer and cover with a cloche through the winter.