Crop guide

Potato

One seed potato gives you a bucket of food, and the plant does almost all the work for you.

Carrot

A home-grown carrot pulled and eaten the same hour tastes nothing like a shop one, and it needs no feeding at all.

Onion

Plant sets in autumn and you have a year of kitchen onions from a bed the size of a doormat.

Garlic

Push a clove in during autumn, ignore it all winter, and lift a whole head the following summer.

Tomato

The single crop where home-grown beats shop-bought by the widest margin, and one plant can give you five kilos.

Lettuce

From seed to salad bowl in about six weeks, and cut-and-come-again types give you four harvests from one sowing.

Courgette

Two plants will feed a family all summer, and the flowers are as good to eat as the fruit.

Green bean

Fast, forgiving and heavy cropping, and the roots leave nitrogen in the soil for whatever you plant next.

Pea

Raw peas eaten straight from the pod are the reason most children start gardening, and they crop in the cool months when little else does.

Beetroot

Two crops in one, since the leaves are as good as chard and the roots store for months.

Radish

Ready in under a month, which makes it the fastest way to prove to yourself that you can grow food.

Spinach

A cool-season crop that gives you iron-rich leaves in the months when the beds are otherwise bare.

Kale

The toughest vegetable in the garden, standing through frost and giving you greens right through winter.

Cabbage

A dense head of cabbage stores for months and turns into sauerkraut, which is the cheapest preserved vegetable you can make.

Pepper

Sweet or hot, a pepper plant crops for months in warm weather and does well in a pot on a sunny balcony.

Cucumber

Grown up a string rather than along the ground, one plant gives you a cucumber every couple of days all summer.

Sweet potato

A heat-loving tuber that produces a heavy crop from cuttings, with edible leaves as a bonus.

Leek

The one vegetable that stands in the ground through winter and is still perfect in February.

Spring onion

Fastest onion you can grow, ready in 8 weeks and happy in a windowbox.

Broad bean

The hardiest bean there is, sown when everything else is finished and picked before the summer crops start.

Turnip

Ready in six weeks, so it fills gaps in a bed better than almost anything else.

Parsnip

A long, slow root that turns sweet after frost, and repays a whole season of patience.

Swiss chard

Cut-and-come-again leaves from one sowing for eight months or more, in heat and in frost.

Rocket

Peppery salad leaves in three weeks from seed, the fastest food in the garden.

Broccoli

One main head then weeks of side shoots, so a few plants feed a family for a season.

Cauliflower

The fussiest brassica, but a perfect home-grown head is worth learning the rules for.

Aubergine

A long hot season gives glossy fruit for months, and Portugal has exactly that season.

Pumpkin

Plant three seeds in June and eat the results next March, no fridge needed.

Basil

The herb that makes a summer tomato taste finished, and it grows on a windowsill.

Parsley

Two years of leaves from one sowing, and it keeps cropping when the rest of the garden is bare.

Coriander

Leaves in four weeks and seed by late summer, two crops from one small sowing.

Strawberry

Plant once and pick for three or four years, from a bed, a pot or a hanging basket.