The Ten Easiest To Grow Vegetables

If you're a beginner at growing your own vegetables these are the ideal way to get quality home-grown produce with absolute the minimum of effort.


1. Courgettes
Sow these in the spring and you'll be eating them for most of the summer and autumn. The more you pick them, the more they'll grow, and if you slice them up you can freeze any you have left over.

2. Garlic
You can plant cloves brought from a supermarket but proper bulbs from a nursery or garden centre will grow better. Plant the cloves just below the surface of the soil about 10cm apart in autumn and they should be ready around mid august time.

3. Carrots
The best varieties to grow are Early Nantes in summer and Autumn Kings in winter. Make sure you dig your ground over properly to get long carrots, but don't use fertiliser or you will get 'fanging' (extra bits growing off the sides). Because of the warm, wet summers we now get a lot of carrot root fly - you can get around this by growing them under insect proof netting (I also use this method on leeks because of leek moth)

4. Potatoes
These are one of the few vegetables that are easier to grow in your garden rather than an allotment because of the risk of potato blight. It's still possible on an allotment but it pays to buy a blight resistant variety and grow them under plastic. Potatoes will grow really easily in a raised bed or in a potato planter on your patio.

5. Runner Beans
Plant your beans from May onwards (or when the risk of frost is past) about 15cm apart and as soon as you have some growth, give them a stick to climb up. Once you see small red flowers, you can water them to get the beans to set. Make sure you keep picking these as the more you pick, the more you'll get! Try to find a 'stringless' variety to make them less hassle to cook.

6. Radish
These grow well in raised beds or patio planters - make sure the soil is well dug and add some bone meal. Plant summer varieties in mid-April and autumn ones from July. You can use a bell cloche to start planting earlier.

7. Onions
It's easiest to grow these from onion sets and put some bird netting over them to stop them from pulling them up. You can grow winter onions (plant in October/November) which will be ready in early summer and plant standard ones in March which should be ready in September/October. Bend the tops over a few weeks before you harvest them.

8. Lettuce
You can grow lettuce most of the year provided you protect it against the cold - a small polytunnel or bell cloche is fine for this. Make sure you keep the slugs and snails away as they will destroy your plants, a beer trap or copper slug bands means you don't have to use pellets which can kill birds.

9. Spinach Beet
Be sure to buy spinach beet seed rather than just spinach seed, it's far easier to grow and tastes just as good. Just sow some in the spring and you'll have spinach until the frost gets it in the winter.


10. Leeks
You can sow these in an outdoor seedbed in March/April and transplant them when they are about the thickness of a pencil, or purchase a tray of them from a nursery or garden centre. Plant them in holes about 20cm deep and filled up with water - water them regularly until they get going. Cover them with insect mesh to prevent leek moth (you can plant them next to your carrots and cover them both with an insect mesh tunnel)