10 Top crops for beginners
1
BEETROOT Small, young beets are delicious roasted, and the young leaves nice in salads. ‘Boltardy’ has lots of flavour and creates a good harvest. Sow directly into the ground from now to July. Keep the soil moist and water every 10-14 days in dry weather.
2 CUT-AND-COME-AGAIN
SALAD LEAVES There are many mixes available – try French or Italian, Oriental or Californian, mild or peppery. When the leaves reach an average height of 7-10cm, snip them off with scissors to about 2cm above soil level; the stumps will regrow and you should get two or three more pickings.
3 COURGETTE
‘DEFENDER’ F1 This is prolific, reliable and disease resistant. You’ll only need a couple of plants, so it may be easier to buy them from a garden centre.
4 RED/GREEN ‘SALAD
BOWL’ Can be grown as cut-and-come-again or left to develop a heart. Sow straight into the ground as soon as the soil is warm, from the end of April. You can speed things up by warming the soil: cover it with clear plastic for a few weeks, or sow under tunnel cloches. Sow as thinly as possible in short rows or a small block every few weeks through the summer to ensure a continuous supply.
5
ROCKET You can’t grow too much of it! To stop it over-flowering, give it plenty of water and a little shade. But if it does, just pick off the flowers – they are delicious. Sow in short rows like other salads or, for best results, grow in a window box with a built-in water reservoir.
6 PEPPERY RADISHES
These are a doddle to grow, ready within four weeks and so pretty in salads. They’re easy to grow in containers, or sow them directly into the ground throughout the summer as you would salad crops.
7 TOMATOES
Try new hanging-basket types; ‘Hundreds and Thousands’ can produce about 2,000 fruits! Or go for ‘Suncherry Premium’ F1; ‘Sungold’ F1 or ‘Santonio’ F1. Sow indoors now, or cheat and buy young plants online. Water daily and use a feed such as Tomorite, according to instructions.
8
CLIMBING BEANS These are incredibly easy to grow. Less productive than runner beans, but arguably finer-flavoured, are French beans – try the purple-podded ones with pretty purple flowers. Tie together bamboo canes to support them; wigwams look nice, but rows are easier to harvest. If growing in bags or containers, choose a dwarf variety rather than a climbing one, such as ‘Sprite’. Sow directly into the ground in April (or once the frosts have ended) – two beans at the base of each cane. Or get ahead by sowing them into pots on the window sill and planting out the young plants. Pick the veg constantly to keep the plant vigorous
– the more you pick, the more you get.
9
MANGETOUT PEAS Varieties such as ‘Oregon Sugar Pod’ are easy and excellent both for their crunchy tender pods and their shoots, which are delicious eaten raw in salads. You may find the pods rarely make it to the kitchen – they’re so moreish eaten straight from the plant! Peas also need a framework to support them – simply erect some chicken wire or netting between posts at each end of the row. You can sow direct into the ground from now until June. But if you are troubled by mice (they love peas!), it will be safer to start them off indoors in a length of guttering. Once the plants are up, make a shallow trench in the veg bed, then slide your seedlings carefully out of the gutter pipe into the trench, watering first so the compost holds together.
10 CARROTS
Beginners often steer clear because carrot fly can so easily ruin your crop. But if you sow a resistant variety such as ‘Flyaway’ F1, you should get away with it. Sow now under cloches, or unprotected from mid-april and throughout May. It’s the smell of carrots that attracts the fly, so sow extremely thinly for minimal disturbance when you thin out the seedlings. Or use a seed tape, so the carrots are correctly spaced. Then sow a row of spring onions alongside, so the onion smell confuses the pest.