I’ve been gardening for more than 30 years, and I’ve come to realise there are some essential crops I absolutely have to have in my garden every year – no matter what!
1. Courgettes
I can’t even begin to imagine a gardening year without the loudest character in the garden – courgettes of course! This warm-season staple is the gift that keeps on giving, and just a few plants can easily keep a family in fruits all summer long. In fact, I reckon this is possibly the most productive crop of all!
They love a mega-rich soil, lavished with loads of organic matter such as garden compost or manure. Start them off indoors in mid-spring, a few weeks before your last frost date, then grow them on in a warm spot until it’s time to plant after the risk of frost is passed.
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Grow two or three courgette plants to ensure good pollination
Keep them well watered in dry weather by banking up the soil in a ring around each plant. This will trap the water so it can fully soak in and not just run off. Remove any old, tattered leaves to keep fresh leaves growing, and pick the fruits young and relatively small for the best taste and texture, and to encourage more to follow.
But perhaps my biggest pro tip is to grow more than one plant. It’s often claimed that one is enough, but two, or preferably three plants in close proximity will ensure better pollination between plants so you really do enjoy more fruits. It’s also worth hand-pollinating squash early in the season for surer fruit formation.
This season I’m choosing a spineless variety called ‘Tuscany’ which should make picking the fruits a lot less painful! It also offers good resistance to powdery mildew, and it grows well in cooler summers – sounds ideal for my garden!
Spineless Zucchini Varieties
- Easy Pick Gold II
- Midnight
- Spineless Beauty
- Spineless Perfection
- Sunstripe
- Tuscany
- Venus
![Tomatoes]()
With so many types and varieties to choose from, it's impossible to get bored of growing tomatoes!
2. Tomatoes
It’s impossible to beat the intensity of taste – and aroma – that comes from tomatoes you’ve grown yourself – so much better than anything you can buy! What I especially love about them is the mindboggling range of types and varieties you can grow, from sweet, pop-in-the-mouth cherry toms to big-and-ballsy beefsteaks for slicing up as the centrepiece to a salad with attitude.
Heritage varieties of tomato have some real crackers among them, many with a story to tell. There’s the gorgeously striped ‘Zebra’ tomatoes, fleshy types for sauces like ‘Amish Paste’, and meaty monsters such as ‘Mortgage Lifter’, which was so popular when it launched in the 1930s that the chap behind them earned enough to pay off his home loan within six years. I need to find me a plant like that!
My top tip for tomatoes in damp climates is to grow them under cover if you can. This will help to keep the foliage dry and reduce the risk of blight, a serious fungal disease. If don’t have a greenhouse or polytunnel, search out a blight-resistant variety – they can be a real game-changer in the typically humid, warm conditions that blight loves. Your blight-resistant tomatoes may still get infected, but they’ll push through any damage to continue growing and cropping.
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Keep tomatoes consistently watered to prevent blossom end rot
Top Blight-Resistant Tomatoes
- Burlesque
- Cocktail Crush
- Consuelo F1
- Crimson Cherry
- Crimson Crush
- Lizzano
- Losetto
- Mountain Magic
Plant tomatoes in a warm, sunny position into well-drained, nutrient rich soil. Use stakes, strings or cages to support plants. Regularly prune out the sideshoots or suckers of vining types, and cut off the lowest leaves to encourage good airflow, which will reduce disease problems. Mulch to retain moisture and water consistently – that’s really important to prevent blossom end rot.
Tomatoes are hungry plants, so water on an organic liquid tomato fertiliser every week or two to help plants set, swell and ripen those fruits. Once they’re ripe and ready, pick tomatoes promptly to encourage more fruits.
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Climbing beans are staggeringly productive if you keep picking them
3. Climbing Beans
Climbing beans are always going to be a winner because when trained up supports they make really efficient use of valuable garden space. Every garden needs these vining beauties for their good looks too! They add vertical interest and can be grown up trellis, a teepee of canes or – my favourite – up and over an archway, which makes them really easy to pick. They’re really eye-catching once cloaked with foliage and brought alive with flowers and dangling pods.
Beans are very easy to grow. Sow in mid-spring then keep the seedlings frost-free once they are up. Transplant outside against suitable supports after all danger of frost has passed. They love rich soil, so prepare the ground in advance by laying on top a generous cushion of garden compost or well-rotted manure. The vines should find their own way up and, once they start to flower, it won’t be long before the pods are coming thick and fast. Keep picking to keep them coming.
My insider tip is to try a purple or yellow-podded variety. Not only do they look stunning, the pods are often easier to spot against the green foliage, making picking time less of a game of hide and seek!
If you can’t keep up with picking the pods – which really do come thick and fast – another option is to grow a variety for drying at the end of the season. Many drying beans like the speckled borlotti types can be enjoyed fresh when the pods are young and tender, then left to mature for drying and shelling for the winter store cupboard, which makes them a very handy dual-purpose vegetable.
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Garlic offers a staggering punch of flavor for very little effort
4. Garlic
If I had to pick just one essential bulb it would most definitely be garlic. You can really pack garlic in and it’s almost foolproof. The pleasingly plump cloves are planted in autumn then pretty much left to get on with it til harvest time. Not only is it easy to grow, it also stores really well and, of course, adds depth and deliciousness to any dish.
If you want to grow lots of bulbs for storage, choose one of the softneck varieties, which keep for longer than hardnecks. Plant the cloves from mid-autumn to early winter, setting them about 4-6in (10-15cm) apart into well-drained soil. Planting at the right depth is important – set them into the soil so at least an inch (3cm) or soil sits above the tip of the clove.
If your soil’s really wet over winter, start them off in plug trays then plant them out in spring. Garlic is exceptionally hardy, especially hardneck varieties, but if winters are cold where you are, it’s prudent to mulch heavily to protect them from the worst of the frost. They’ll be ready to harvest the following summer.
There are varieties specially bred for spring planting too, so if you haven’t yet planted your garlic you can still bag yourself a harvest this growing season.
Spring Planting Garlic Varieties
- California Early
- Chesnok Red
- Cledor
- Early Italian
- Elephant
- Mersley Wight
- Nootka Rose
- Picardy Wight
- Silver Rose
- Solent Wight
![A row of spinach]()
Nutritious spinach can be sown early to get a crop before the heat of summer prompts it to bolt
5. Spinach
Leafy greens are famously good for us, especially if we grow them ourselves. Garden-grown vegetables are often more nutritious than conventional, field-grown produce because we can take the time and care to properly look after our soil, replenishing all of the goodness that our plants take out.
Spinach is a must-grow for me because it’s quick-growing and can be sown surprisingly early in the season, while it’s still quite fresh out. Sow the seeds from late winter, through spring and on into summer, starting the earliest sowings under the protection of a cold frame, greenhouse or polytunnel to coax them into early growth. I like to sow spinach into plug trays, then transplant the seedlings once they are big enough at spacings of around 8in (20cm) each way.
Spinach can bolt (go to seed) early in the season, so pick a slow-to-bolt variety for early sowings. This means you’ll enjoy more pickings before the plants eventually flower. If you’re growing it in the heat of summer, then spinach is one of those very handy vegetables that will actually thrive in light shade.
For a continuous supply of spinach leaves, pick just a few of the outermost leaves from each plant on each passing.
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No matter how small your garden, you can still grow potatoes in containers
6. Potatoes
No one grows potatoes to save money – they’re cheap as chips! – so what’s the point of growing them?
If you’ve never tried your own early season or new potatoes then you haven’t lived! Freshly unearthed nuggets of gold are the golden ticket to heavenliness! You can grow potatoes in the ground, in raised beds, or even in containers, which means all gardeners can enjoy them, even if all you have is a small patio or balcony.
Container growing is my new favourite way to grow them because it’s so simple. Fill a large tub with a 50-50 mix of garden compost and potting mix, then plunge a few seed potatoes right down to the bottom. Give it all a good drink and keep them well-watered until it’s time to harvest.
You can enjoy a super-early start by keeping your container of potatoes in a protected space until it has warmed up enough outside. I’ve harvested before the end of spring this way! Just make sure to keep the container shaded so the roots don’t get too warm.
Like tomatoes, potatoes can be susceptible to blight, so I like to avoid disappointment by choosing a blight-resistant variety.
Top Blight-Resistant Potato Varieties
- Cara
- Sarpo Mira
- Sarpo Una
- Setanta
- Valor
Slugs can be an issue too, so harvest promptly or grow early varieties so they don’t get a chance to settle in and nibble at them. Do your potatoes ever get nibbled by slugs? I feel for you! Let me know in the comments.
!['Chioggia' beetroot]()
Wacky 'Chioggia' is just one of many colorful beetroot varieties
7. Beetroot
Beetroot is both sweet and earthy – a heady combination that lends it as much to roasting as grating for a fresh-and-zingy slaw. I grow carrots too, but beetroot is my must-grow root crop because they’re inexplicably expensive to buy in the shops. There’s an exciting range of roots to enjoy: deep red beets, yellow ones and, most mesmerisingly of all, the stripy candy cane or ‘Chioggia’ beets.
Grow them in a sunny position in moist but well-drained soil. You can sow beetroot directly into rows spaced about a foot (30cm) apart, then thin in stages until the seedlings are about 2-3in (5-7cm) apart. But my preferred way to grow them is by sowing a scant pinch of seeds into plug trays to plant out as a cluster of four or five seedlings spaced at around 10in (25cm) apart in both directions.
The very best, truly exceptional flavour comes from roots harvested on the young side – around the size of a golf ball. And if you really love your beetroot, grow some for storing too. Make a final sowing in midsummer to grow into autumn for a winter-ready cache of roots. In milder areas like mine these can be left in the ground, as they are, to lift and enjoy as needed, or in colder regions dug up and stored in boxes of damp sand or compost in a cool but frost-free place where they’ll keep until the following spring.
