Veganic gardening tips: Choosing what to grow

Choosing what crops to grow in your garden or on your allotment will partly depend on the climate, whether you have a greenhouse or polytunnel and what other resources you have available. Most importantly, however, you should consider what you (and those you live with) like to eat! This might sound obvious, but it's amazing how many people grow too much of something they're not that keen on, or that produces a wasteful amount of something that's difficult to store.

Start with the simple task of listing all the foods you like to eat that could be grown with the space/climate available. If you provide food for others, get them to do the same. If you're not sure where to start, try a seed/plant catalogue (such as The Organic Gardening Catalogue) to give you a number of options.

If you don't have much time to devote to caring for your crops, you might want to focus on a few that are easy to grow and need little maintenance, such as potatoes and onions. As these can be stored for long periods, they are easy crops to be self-sufficient in throughout the year. Conversely, if you have the time and want to be adventurous, you may prefer to grow a smaller amount of a large number of different crops, accepting that you will only be partly self-sufficient in them unless you have enough land.

If you only have a small area to grow in outdoors — maybe a balcony or patio — you may wish to choose a few plants that crop well in containers, such as courgettes, tomatoes and salad leaves. Alternatively, you may prefer a few attractive perennial plants that provide fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, figs and apples on dwarfing rootstocks.

You may have inherited a garden/ allotment with a large number of plants you don't like. If this is the case, don't just keep growing them for the sake of it, dig them up and give them to neighbours who do like them, freeing up space for crops you prefer.

Planning quantities

When it comes to deciding how much of each crop to grow, keeping records from year to year is recommended. For each different produce, note down the varieties you grew, the size of the harvest and how long it lasted you. After a few years you will have a very good idea of how much is needed to be self-sufficient for particular crops.

It also helps to record or estimate how much you eat of certain items. Take onions for example: if you are growing for two people and you consume an average of four onions per week between you, then a simple bit of maths (4 x 52 = 208) gives you an idea how many to grow to be fully selfsufficient. However, it's always a good idea to add a few extra for losses while growing and storing, for feeding guests, and maybe a small surplus for giving away, so, using the example described above, you may decide to grow 240 onions.