Alan shows how to get more veg now

Alan continues his case for late-sown veg with expert advice on why you should sow now

"Nothing quite matches the sense of achievement when it comes to eating a crop that started life as a tiny seed in your hand"

There is always a good reason to grow your own veg, but this exceptionally eventful year has pointed out more than most just how much sense it makes to grow at least a handful of crops to supplement those we can buy in the shops. Nothing quite matches the sense of achievement when it comes to growing, harvesting, cooking and eating a crop that started life as a tiny seed in your hand.

There is something primeval in the whole exercise. Once we stopped being huntergatherers and put down roots ourselves, we realised the wisdom (and the pleasure) to be had in going some way towards selfsufficiency. Back then our very lives depended on being able to cultivate land, and in some ways that state of affairs has been regenerated by a virus which has kept us at home and made us more aware of the value of that piece of ground we call a garden. As well as sustaining us spiritually, it can also sustain us bodily by providing food from one end of the year to the other.

Few folk have either the amount of land or the time available to become self-sufficient, but we can all have a crack at growing at least something to eat, and June is not too late to start. At this time of year, even in northern areas, the danger of frost has passed and the warmer soil encourages faster growth of veg and of herbs – many of which hail from the Mediterranean and thus prefer warmer weather. This means that results are not only achieved faster but that success is far more likely than with seeds committed to cold, wet earth too early on. Vegetables sown now will often surprise you at their speed of growth, and that very speed will often imbue them with a tenderness lacking in crops that have struggled against the elements. You are too late to plant potatoes and onion sets, but the likes of French and runner beans can be sown outside where they are to grow now, instead of having to be cossetted in pots under cover before planting out.

Speedy salad and succession

Remember that mice love bean seeds, so it makes sense to sow rather more thickly than normal to allow for their depredations. Sow three or four seeds of runner beans at the foot of each cane in a wigwam or row, and thin to leave just one or two plants if you are lucky enough to enjoy a 100 per cent survival rate! Salad crops, like lettuce and radish, will grow speedily, so limit yourself to sowing a metre of row every 10 days to enjoy a steady succession rather than a glut.

I set up a taut garden line and flick out a shallow drill with the end of a short bamboo cane before watering the base to make sure the seeds will come into contact with damp earth. I trickle in the seeds with my fingers and then lightly rake back the earth with a