VEGETABLES TO GROW IN A SMALL GARDEN

This has been one of the most often asked questions this year which is encouraging as one of the first pieces of advice is start small! Why? Because you’re less likely to give up growing your own if you don’t take on too much at once.

So you’ve installed a couple of raised beds, you’ve cleared a space for some veggies somewhere bright and sunny in your garden, or you’re even planning on planting vegetables among your flower borders or in containers; now you’re wondering what you might grow in your small vegetable garden that will give you the most return for your efforts. 

Four tips to bear in mind when growing in a small vegetable garden

1. Grow what you like to eat – no sense growing spinach if you can’t stand the taste.

2. Choose vegetable varieties that are expensive in the shops – shallots, mangetout or early potatoes can all add a few extra cent to your weekly budget which means you may never buy them or they’re only ever special treats.

3. Choose leafy veg that you can harvest a few leaves off and they will keep growing (known as cut and come again), beans or peas that will keep producing the more you pick them, bulbs that will break up into smaller cloves or small vegetables that don’t take up much space.

4. Grow something different. Most supermarkets only sell the most popular vegetables with chards and pretty spinach varieties such as Bordeaux never seeing their shelves. Now’s a chance for you to grow something you’d like to eat and not be told what to eat by the Buyers.

Suggested vegetables to grow in a small garden

In no particular order, here’s a list of vegetables that have grown well in gardens I’ve worked with of all shapes and sizes. I’m not suggesting you grow them all at once, mix and match and see what grows well for you.

Shallots – a member of the Allium (onion) family, just one set (immature bulb) planted in the soil will develop into five or six shallots. They also store well over winter.

Garlic – again an Allium, when you plant one clove, it will develop into a whole bulb and is very easy to grow once you follow the planting guide.

Kale – there are many types of kale from scarlet to Russian, curly green to Tuscany. If you harvest a few leaves off each plant, rather than stripping the plant bare, it will grow more leaves and keep producing for you for months, from late summer through to early spring.

Purple Sprouting brocoli (PSB) – as with the kale above, keep picking the small florets from several plants and not stripping one bare. Also you’ll be eating this plant during late winter/early spring when there’s not too much else around to eat.

Early potatoes – if you’re keen to grow potatoes, not only do early varieties grow faster than their main crop cousins, they’re usually pricier in the shops and all being well, you’ll have harvested them before the blight. Earlies also grow well in containers.