What should you grow?

The crop most people start with - a single healthy plant can give kilos of fruit, and greenhouse plants crop earlier, longer and cleaner than outdoor ones.

Fast, generous and perfect for pickling - greenhouse types are smooth and seedless, outdoor ridge types are tougher and handle cooler weather.

Bell and sweet peppers need a long warm season, so most gardeners grow them under cover - the reward is thick, sweet fruit that ripens from green to red.

Compact, productive and easy to dry or freeze for the whole year - chilies love heat, so a greenhouse or sunny windowsill gives the best crop.

The classic beginner win and the classic beginner problem - one or two plants will bury you in courgettes, which is exactly why the preserving section matters.

Aubergines need the same long warm season as peppers, so they thrive under cover - a few plants give a steady run of glossy fruit into autumn.

Sprawling and hungry but wonderfully low-effort - winter squash and pumpkins store for months in a cool room, so a small patch feeds you deep into winter.

A homestead staple that stores and ferments beautifully - sow the right type and you can cut cabbage across much of the year, then turn a glut into sauerkraut.

The fussiest of the common brassicas - it needs steady, rich, uninterrupted growth or the curds turn small and loose, which is why it rewards experience.

More forgiving than cauliflower and more generous - after the main head, sprouting types keep throwing side shoots for weeks of small pickings.

The quickest, easiest salad crop - sow a little every couple of weeks and you have leaves from spring to autumn, and under cover almost year-round.

A fast, cool-season leaf that is happiest in spring and autumn - in summer heat it bolts to seed, so time it right and it is almost foolproof.

The toughest, most reliable leafy green there is - it shrugs off frost and actually tastes sweeter after a cold snap, giving you greens through winter.

Home-grown carrots are far sweeter than shop ones, but they need loose stone-free soil to grow straight, and protection from carrot root fly.

One of the easiest roots - fast, forgiving and doubly useful because the young leaves are a tasty salad green, and the roots pickle brilliantly.

The fastest crop in the garden - some are ready to pull in three to four weeks, which makes them the perfect confidence-builder and a great pickle.

A low-effort kitchen staple that stores for months - plant small sets in spring, and by late summer you have a plait of onions for the whole winter.

Plant it and forget it - cloves go in during autumn, sit through winter, and are lifted the next summer as fat bulbs that store for most of the year.

The ultimate grow-your-own staple - a few seed potatoes turn into a heavy, satisfying harvest, and they even grow well in a large bag on a patio.

Nothing tastes like a pea straight off the plant - they are easy, quick and improve the soil by fixing nitrogen, though they need something to climb.

Runner and French beans are among the most productive crops for the space - a short row up a wigwam of canes crops heavily for weeks and freezes well.

The summer herb that pairs with everything you grow - it loves warmth, so it thrives on a windowsill or in the greenhouse alongside the tomatoes.

The classic partner to cucumbers and the pickling jar - feathery leaves for salads and fish, and seed heads that flavour every jar of pickles you make.

The workhorse kitchen herb - slow to start but then generous for months, and hardy enough to keep picking well into the cold.

Two crops in one - fresh leaf (cilantro) for salsa and curries, and coriander seed for the spice rack - but it bolts fast, so the trick is sowing little and often.

Almost impossible to kill and almost impossible to contain - grow it in a pot to stop the roots taking over the whole garden, and you will never run short.

A tough Mediterranean perennial that comes back year after year, gets more flavourful in a sunny, poor, dry spot, and dries better than almost any other herb.

A low, woody evergreen perennial you can pick even in winter - it thrives on neglect in a hot, dry, well-drained spot and hates rich, wet soil.

An evergreen shrub that gives you fragrant needles all year, needs almost no care in a sunny sheltered spot, and slowly grows into a handsome bush.

A handsome, drought-tough perennial with soft grey-green leaves for stuffing, pork and butter sauces - easy in a sunny spot and happy to be picked most of the year.

The easiest allium there is - a neat clump of mild onion-flavoured leaves you snip all season, topped with edible purple pompom flowers bees adore.

The classic French herb for chicken, fish and creamy sauces - grow French tarragon, not the coarse Russian type, in a warm, well-drained spot for the true aniseed flavour.

The sweeter, gentler cousin of oregano - warm and floral rather than sharp, lovely in tomato dishes, and happy in a sunny pot or a warm border.

A vigorous, lemon-scented member of the mint family for teas and cordials - as enthusiastic as mint about spreading, so pot it or it will seed everywhere.

A slow evergreen shrub or small tree that gives you cooking leaves all year - grow it in a pot you can move to shelter, and it will last for decades.

A tall, feathery perennial grown for its aniseed leaves and seeds rather than a bulb - beautiful at the back of a border and a magnet for beneficial insects.

The perfect first fruit - quick to reward, happy in a pot, bed or hanging basket, and worlds sweeter picked warm from your own plant than anything in a punnet.

One row of canes crops heavily for years - grow summer types for one big flush or autumn types for an easy-care, prune-to-the-ground harvest into October.

A cultivated blackberry crops far heavier and sweeter than the hedgerow kind, and thornless varieties trained along a fence make picking a pleasure instead of a battle.

Delicious and healthy but particular - blueberries need acid soil, so most gardeners grow them in a pot of ericaceous compost, and two varieties fruit far better than one.

An easy, long-lived bush that hangs with strings of translucent red jewels - tart for eating raw but unbeatable in jellies, sauces and summer puddings.

An old-fashioned, trouble-free bush that crops early - pick hard green berries for cooking, or leave dessert types to ripen soft and sweet enough to eat off the bush.

A vine on a sunny wall or in a greenhouse can crop for decades - outdoor types suit cooler gardens, while a greenhouse gives you sweet dessert grapes even in a poor summer.

A fig against a hot, sheltered wall is one of the great rewards of a warm garden - restrict the roots and it fruits generously instead of making a giant leafy tree.

You do not need an orchard - a tree on a dwarfing rootstock, or a trained cordon against a fence, fits the smallest garden and still gives you basketfuls of apples.

Pears are made for training flat against a warm wall as an espalier, where the extra heat ripens the fruit and the tree takes up almost no ground.

One of the easiest tree fruits - many varieties are self-fertile, so a single tree on a small rootstock can drown you in sweet fruit in a good year.

Modern dwarfing rootstocks and self-fertile varieties have made cherries a real option for small gardens and pots - the only serious rival for the fruit is the birds.

A hardy, patient crop that stands right through winter - leeks give you sweet, mild stems when little else is in the ground, but they need a long season to size up.

One of the thirstier, fussier crops - celery wants constantly rich, damp soil and never a dry day, but self-blanching types have made it far more achievable than the old trench kind.

The alien-looking brassica that is actually one of the easiest and fastest - the swollen stem is crisp and mild like a sweet turnip, and it can be ready in as little as eight weeks.

A long-season winter staple that actually tastes better after a frost - but the plants are tall and hungry, so they need firm soil and a long run to crop well.

A quick, cool-season root ready in six to ten weeks - pull them small and sweet, and use the peppery leafy tops as a cooked green too.

The sweetest winter root, and sweeter still after frost - parsnips are slow and need deep, stone-free soil, but they stand happily in the ground until you want them.

Nothing beats a cob boiled minutes after picking, while the sugars are still sweet - the trick is growing it in a block, not a row, so the wind pollinates it properly.

A long-term investment that pays for decades - an asparagus bed takes two or three years to establish, but then throws tender spears every spring for twenty years or more.

A tough, handsome perennial that comes back bigger every year - the tart pink stalks are the reward, and one established crown can crop for a decade with almost no effort.

The quickest allium there is - sow a pinch every few weeks and you have mild, crunchy salad onions in about eight weeks, from the smallest bed or a windowsill pot.

One of the most generous and forgiving leaves - chard crops for months, shrugs off heat and cold better than spinach, and the bright stems look good enough for a flower border.

A fast, juicy oriental brassica ready in weeks and lovely in stir-fries - but it bolts in the heat and long days of midsummer, so it does best sown for autumn.

One of the earliest crops off the beds and among the most forgiving - broad beans are hardy enough to sow in autumn, fix their own nitrogen, and give you tender pods before most summer veg has started.

A classic climbing crop that turns a few square feet of ground into a tall wall of beans - once they start, runner beans crop heavily for weeks if you keep picking.

A warmth-loving relative of bindweed rather than a true potato, grown from rooted cuttings called slips - given a long hot summer or a greenhouse, it rewards you with sweet, keeping tubers.

Grown from sets that each split into a whole cluster of bulbs, shallots give a milder, sweeter flavour than onions and store beautifully right through winter.

A big, hardy, cold-sweetened root that stands out in the garden through hard frost - swede is undemanding, stores itself in the ground, and earns its place in every winter stew.

The knobbly, celery-flavoured root that keeps far more easily than celery and needs none of the blanching - a long, steady season crop that comes into its own for winter soups and mash.

About the fastest salad you can grow - rocket goes from seed to peppery leaves in a few weeks, crops as a cut-and-come-again, and thrives in the cooler ends of the year.

You do not need a stream - watercress grows happily in a pot stood in a saucer of water on a shady sill, giving pungent, mineral-rich sprigs for salads and soups.

A hardy, slightly bitter salad leaf that fills the gap when lettuce is over - endive stands into the cold, and you can blanch the hearts pale and sweet if the bitterness is too much.

The best-keeping of the winter squashes - given a long warm season, butternut ripens to sweet orange flesh and then stores for months in a cool room without any processing.

A true heat-lover that needs greenhouse warmth in cooler climates - okra rewards a long hot summer with a steady run of tender pods, but sulks and stalls if it gets cold.

The easiest nut to grow at home - a hardy, coppiceable shrub-tree that crops within a few years and copes with most soils. Cobnuts and filberts are simply selected hazelnuts.

A magnificent long-lived tree for those with space and patience - it can take a decade or more to crop well, and the roots release juglone that suppresses many nearby plants.

The tree behind roast chestnuts - a big, fast-growing timber tree that needs a warm summer to ripen its spiny burrs, and is happiest on lighter, acid-leaning soils.

A close cousin of the peach with beautiful early blossom, but a gamble in cool climates - it flowers so early that frost often kills the crop, so it needs a warm, sheltered, sunny spot.

A warm-climate hickory that gives the richest, most buttery of nuts - superb where summers are long and hot, but marginal and slow to crop in cooler regions.

Harvested from the cones of the stone pine, these are the ultimate patience crop - a beautiful umbrella-shaped evergreen that takes many years to cone, then a lot of work to shell.

Not a true nut but a tender legume, and a genuinely fun crop - after flowering, the stalks bend down and push the developing pods into the soil, where the peanuts form underground.

Cheerful, fast and easy, and the big seed-bearing varieties give a real edible crop - a single large head can yield a good handful of seeds to roast, if you can beat the birds to them.