Easy quick-as-a-flash veg

If you’re a beginner gardener, or just someone who doesn’t want to wait long to see the fruits of their labour, then growing quick-maturing crops is the answer.

From windowsill micro greens, to young lettuce leaves and radishes which will be ready to pick in just a few weeks, there are many veg you can harvest while waiting for the slower ones to grow. Permaculturist, digital creator and author Huw Richards, whose gardening Youtube channel has over 750k subscribers, believes growing veg doesn’t need to be expensive or time-consuming – although he does have some reservations about people being impatient with their edibles.

“All the best-tasting crops take a bit longer to grow than the fast crops. Peas, for instance, will take six to eight weeks longer than radish, but they taste four times as good,” says Huw, co-author of the Self-sufficiency Garden, written with Instagram star Sam Cooper. However, if you are a beginner and need some quick results to motivate you to continue, he recommends the following quick-maturing veg…

1to

Pea shoots - The gateway gardening is growing pea shoots, because that takes you two weeks, and if you can’t wait two weeks then you shouldn’t be a gardener. Start them off in a yogurt pot with holes in the bottom, resting on a saucer on a windowsill. Put 5cm of peatfree multi-purpose compost in the pot.

You can get dried marrowfat peas from the supermarket and put them over the surface, 1cm between each pea, fill the pot with a couple more centimetres of compost and keep it moist, like a wrung-out sponge, on a sunny windowsill and you will have a big harvest in a couple of weeks.

Cut the shoots just above the lowest node because they can then give you two or three more crops or cuttings. For pea shoots, it doesn’t matter which type you choose, because you’re not going for the pod.

Look for tall-growing varieties which have vigour. 2

Leafy greens - Lettuce and spinach are among the most popular leafy greens and they are all pretty fast-growing. There are so many different types of lettuce and so many different colours, so just pick out the one that stands out the most to you. As long as you keep the slugs off, they are fool-proof and they are not very hungry crops either. Sow them outside from mid April in sun or partial shade and, depending on the weather, they can be ready for harvesting in seven to eight weeks.

3edibles

Mint - If you are growing in a container, a mint plant is perfect as you can add the leaves to summer drinks and salads. Either buy a plant from your local nursery or get a pot of mint from the supermarket and split it into smaller plants, or you can take cuttings and just propagate it in water. You can keep it within a pot and harvest it within three to four weeks if it’s on a sunny windowsill. Pots of mint will thrive outside and you can be picking it throughout spring and summer.

4vibrant

Nasturtiums - These flowers add a peppery flavour as well as rich colour to salads and other summer fare, but don’t start them off until mid April because they are frostsensitive. You can harvest the leaves after six weeks and after eight to 10 weeks, you’ll get the flowers. Grow them from seed, one to two seeds in a 7cm pot, 2-3cm deep and start them off inside on a sunny windowsill.

Once all chance of frost has gone, you can plant them outside into a container. Every part of the plant above ground can be eaten. The seedheads which appear later can be pickled.

The Selfsufficiency Garden, written by Huw Richards and Sam Cooper