🌱 Grow your own
Grow your own food
Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers under glass; cabbage, carrots and beans out in the beds; herbs on the windowsill and fruit from a pot or a patio tree. This is the grow-your-own side of Plantvale - pick a crop to see what it gives you, the space and effort it takes, and how to sow, grow, harvest and store it.
🍅 Fruiting crops
Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini - the greenhouse and summer stars.
🍅 Beginner 🏠 Tomatoes
The crop most people start with - a single healthy plant can give kilos of fruit, and…
🥒 Beginner 🏠 Cucumbers
Fast, generous and perfect for pickling - greenhouse types are smooth and seedless, outdoor…
🫑 Intermediate 🏠 Sweet Peppers
Bell and sweet peppers need a long warm season, so most gardeners grow them under cover -…
🌶️ Intermediate 🏠 Chili Peppers
Compact, productive and easy to dry or freeze for the whole year - chilies love heat, so a…
🥬 Beginner Zucchini
The classic beginner win and the classic beginner problem - one or two plants will bury you…
🍆 Intermediate 🏠 Eggplant
Aubergines need the same long warm season as peppers, so they thrive under cover - a few…
🎃 Beginner Pumpkins & Squash
Sprawling and hungry but wonderfully low-effort - winter squash and pumpkins store for…
🌽 Beginner Sweetcorn
Nothing beats a cob boiled minutes after picking, while the sugars are still sweet - the…
🎃 Intermediate Butternut Squash
The best-keeping of the winter squashes - given a long warm season, butternut ripens to…
🫑 Advanced 🏠 Okra
A true heat-lover that needs greenhouse warmth in cooler climates - okra rewards a long hot…🥬 Leafy greens & brassicas
Cabbage, kale, broccoli, lettuce, spinach - the productive backbone of the plot.
🥬 Intermediate Cabbage
A homestead staple that stores and ferments beautifully - sow the right type and you can…
🥦 Advanced Cauliflower
The fussiest of the common brassicas - it needs steady, rich, uninterrupted growth or the…
🥦 Intermediate Broccoli
More forgiving than cauliflower and more generous - after the main head, sprouting types…
🥗 Beginner Lettuce
The quickest, easiest salad crop - sow a little every couple of weeks and you have leaves…
🍃 Beginner Spinach
A fast, cool-season leaf that is happiest in spring and autumn - in summer heat it bolts to…
🥬 Beginner Kale
The toughest, most reliable leafy green there is - it shrugs off frost and actually tastes…
🌿 Advanced Celery
One of the thirstier, fussier crops - celery wants constantly rich, damp soil and never a…
🥬 Beginner Kohlrabi
The alien-looking brassica that is actually one of the easiest and fastest - the swollen…
🥬 Intermediate Brussels Sprouts
A long-season winter staple that actually tastes better after a frost - but the plants are…
🌱 Beginner Rhubarb
A tough, handsome perennial that comes back bigger every year - the tart pink stalks are…
🥬 Beginner Swiss Chard
One of the most generous and forgiving leaves - chard crops for months, shrugs off heat and…
🥬 Beginner Pak Choi
A fast, juicy oriental brassica ready in weeks and lovely in stir-fries - but it bolts in…
🥬 Beginner Rocket
About the fastest salad you can grow - rocket goes from seed to peppery leaves in a few…
💧 Intermediate Watercress
You do not need a stream - watercress grows happily in a pot stood in a saucer of water on…
🥗 Intermediate Endive
A hardy, slightly bitter salad leaf that fills the gap when lettuce is over - endive stands…🥕 Roots & alliums
Carrots, beets, radishes, onions, garlic and potatoes - the storage crops.
🥕 Intermediate Carrots
Home-grown carrots are far sweeter than shop ones, but they need loose stone-free soil to…
🫐 Beginner Beetroot
One of the easiest roots - fast, forgiving and doubly useful because the young leaves are a…
🔴 Beginner Radishes
The fastest crop in the garden - some are ready to pull in three to four weeks, which makes…
🧅 Beginner Onions
A low-effort kitchen staple that stores for months - plant small sets in spring, and by…
🧄 Beginner Garlic
Plant it and forget it - cloves go in during autumn, sit through winter, and are lifted the…
🥔 Beginner Potatoes
The ultimate grow-your-own staple - a few seed potatoes turn into a heavy, satisfying…
🧅 Intermediate Leeks
A hardy, patient crop that stands right through winter - leeks give you sweet, mild stems…
🟣 Beginner Turnips
A quick, cool-season root ready in six to ten weeks - pull them small and sweet, and use…
🥕 Intermediate Parsnips
The sweetest winter root, and sweeter still after frost - parsnips are slow and need deep,…
🌿 Intermediate Asparagus
A long-term investment that pays for decades - an asparagus bed takes two or three years to…
🌱 Beginner Spring Onions
The quickest allium there is - sow a pinch every few weeks and you have mild, crunchy salad…
🍠 Intermediate 🏠 Sweet Potato
A warmth-loving relative of bindweed rather than a true potato, grown from rooted cuttings…
🧅 Beginner Shallots
Grown from sets that each split into a whole cluster of bulbs, shallots give a milder,…
🥔 Beginner Swede
A big, hardy, cold-sweetened root that stands out in the garden through hard frost - swede…
🌿 Intermediate Celeriac
The knobbly, celery-flavoured root that keeps far more easily than celery and needs none of…🫛 Legumes
Peas and beans - productive, and they feed the soil as they grow.
🫛 Beginner Peas
Nothing tastes like a pea straight off the plant - they are easy, quick and improve the…
🫛 Beginner Green Beans
Runner and French beans are among the most productive crops for the space - a short row up…
🫘 Beginner Broad Beans
One of the earliest crops off the beds and among the most forgiving - broad beans are hardy…
🫛 Beginner Runner Beans
A classic climbing crop that turns a few square feet of ground into a tall wall of beans -…🌿 Herbs
Basil, mint, rosemary, thyme, sage and more - the flavour of the garden.
🌿 Beginner Basil
The summer herb that pairs with everything you grow - it loves warmth, so it thrives on a…
🌿 Beginner Dill
The classic partner to cucumbers and the pickling jar - feathery leaves for salads and…
🌿 Beginner Parsley
The workhorse kitchen herb - slow to start but then generous for months, and hardy enough…
🌿 Beginner Coriander (Cilantro)
Two crops in one - fresh leaf (cilantro) for salsa and curries, and coriander seed for the…
🌿 Beginner Mint
Almost impossible to kill and almost impossible to contain - grow it in a pot to stop the…
🌿 Beginner Oregano
A tough Mediterranean perennial that comes back year after year, gets more flavourful in a…
🌿 Beginner Thyme
A low, woody evergreen perennial you can pick even in winter - it thrives on neglect in a…
🌿 Beginner Rosemary
An evergreen shrub that gives you fragrant needles all year, needs almost no care in a…
🌿 Beginner Sage
A handsome, drought-tough perennial with soft grey-green leaves for stuffing, pork and…
🌿 Beginner Chives
The easiest allium there is - a neat clump of mild onion-flavoured leaves you snip all…
🌿 Intermediate Tarragon
The classic French herb for chicken, fish and creamy sauces - grow French tarragon, not the…
🌿 Beginner Marjoram
The sweeter, gentler cousin of oregano - warm and floral rather than sharp, lovely in…
🌿 Beginner Lemon Balm
A vigorous, lemon-scented member of the mint family for teas and cordials - as enthusiastic…
🌿 Beginner Bay
A slow evergreen shrub or small tree that gives you cooking leaves all year - grow it in a…
🌿 Beginner Fennel (herb)
A tall, feathery perennial grown for its aniseed leaves and seeds rather than a bulb -…🍓 Fruit
Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and patio trees - homegrown fruit for small spaces.
🍓 Beginner Strawberries
The perfect first fruit - quick to reward, happy in a pot, bed or hanging basket, and…
🫐 Beginner Raspberries
One row of canes crops heavily for years - grow summer types for one big flush or autumn…
⚫ Beginner Blackberries
A cultivated blackberry crops far heavier and sweeter than the hedgerow kind, and thornless…
🔵 Intermediate Blueberries
Delicious and healthy but particular - blueberries need acid soil, so most gardeners grow…
🔴 Beginner Redcurrants
An easy, long-lived bush that hangs with strings of translucent red jewels - tart for…
🟢 Beginner Gooseberries
An old-fashioned, trouble-free bush that crops early - pick hard green berries for cooking,…
🍇 Intermediate 🏠 Grapes
A vine on a sunny wall or in a greenhouse can crop for decades - outdoor types suit cooler…
🟣 Intermediate Figs
A fig against a hot, sheltered wall is one of the great rewards of a warm garden - restrict…
🍎 Beginner Apples (patio)
You do not need an orchard - a tree on a dwarfing rootstock, or a trained cordon against a…
🍐 Intermediate Pears
Pears are made for training flat against a warm wall as an espalier, where the extra heat…
🟪 Beginner Plums
One of the easiest tree fruits - many varieties are self-fertile, so a single tree on a…
🍒 Intermediate Cherries (dwarf)
Modern dwarfing rootstocks and self-fertile varieties have made cherries a real option for…🌰 Nuts & seeds
Hazelnuts and walnuts for patient growers, plus quick peanuts and sunflower seeds.
🌰 Beginner Hazelnut (Cobnut)
The easiest nut to grow at home - a hardy, coppiceable shrub-tree that crops within a few…
🌰 Advanced Walnut
A magnificent long-lived tree for those with space and patience - it can take a decade or…
🌰 Intermediate Sweet Chestnut
The tree behind roast chestnuts - a big, fast-growing timber tree that needs a warm summer…
🌰 Advanced Almond
A close cousin of the peach with beautiful early blossom, but a gamble in cool climates -…
🌰 Advanced Pecan
A warm-climate hickory that gives the richest, most buttery of nuts - superb where summers…
🌲 Advanced Pine Nuts
Harvested from the cones of the stone pine, these are the ultimate patience crop - a…
🥜 Intermediate 🏠 Peanut (Groundnut)
Not a true nut but a tender legume, and a genuinely fun crop - after flowering, the stalks…
🌻 Beginner Sunflower (for seeds)
Cheerful, fast and easy, and the big seed-bearing varieties give a real edible crop - a…🫙
Grew more than you can eat? Preserve it
A glut is a good problem. Pickle the cucumbers, can the tomatoes, ferment the cabbage into sauerkraut, and freeze or dry the rest - our preserving section turns a summer surplus into food for the whole winter.
How to preserve the harvest →Plan & grow
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What should I grow?Match a crop to your space, light and goal.
🟩Garden bed plannerDesign a raised bed square by square.
🌱Seed starting chartSoil temperature, depth and days to sprout.
❄️Frost sowing calendarA personal sowing plan from your frost date.
🔁Succession plantingSpace out sowings for a steady supply.
📅Jobs this monthWhat to sow, plant and do right now.