Get off to a flying start
May is the perfect month to get started, as the soil is warm and moist. A little planning now will ensure easy harvests all summer
Choose your crops
To save time and ensure the fastest and biggest harvests, choose crops that are quick and easy to grow. This means either veg that will be ready to pick soon after sowing, such as radishes and cut-and-come-again salad leaves, or those that may take a little longer to come to harvest but when they do, they keep pumping out the produce all summer long with little attention from you. This includes courgettes, beans and chard. Crops that don’t fit the bill are ones that are in the ground for a long time, such as cabbages and main-crop potatoes, or those that are high maintenance and demand a lot of your time, such as cordon tomatoes. Choose the speedier versions of crops, for example mangetouts rather than podding peas, as well as crops that can be picked young – baby carrots are ready 10 days before full-sized ones, and are deliciously sweet and tender. For the quick-to-crop veg, you need to stagger your sowings, putting in a short row every two or three weeks (or weekly in the case of radishes) to give you a constant supply, without any gluts. With long-croppers like beans, chard and courgettes, you simply need to keep on picking them.
Divide up your time and space
Save yourself time and grow all your crops together in one bed. Raised beds are contained and easy to use, their soil drains well and warms up quickly, and you can plant closer together so you get more crops (and fewer weeds). Position your bed in a sunny spot near the house and also, ideally, near a tap so you don’t have to drag the hose too far when watering. Working little and often is best, so divide the bed into manageablesized chunks. I split my 2m x 1m bed in half to create short rows, and I didn’t sow everything at once – regular sowing and therefore harvesting means you won’t get overloaded with produce that you can’t eat. Make the most of the space by growing vertically too – crops such as beans, mangetouts and some types of courgette will climb a cane wigwam.