How to choose what to grow

How to Choose What to Grow

Choosing which crops to grow is one of the most exciting parts of the growing year. In this lesson, I'll explain how to choose what to grow and how to organise your planting plan.

If you're going to use crop rotation in your vegetable garden, the best way to organise your planting is to divide your crops into their main families.

The Joy of Diversity

If you just want to grow one type of vegetable that you love, there's no reason why not, but gardens thrive with diversity and having lots of different plants and flowers is great for pollinating insects too.

Growing a wide variety of vegetables also means you'll be able to grow food that will take you through the whole year and provide you with a broad range of flavours, textures and nutrients.

The Main Vegetable Families

Legumes

• Broad beans
• Peas
• French beans
• Climbing beans
• Runner beans

Brassicas

• Cabbage
• Kale
• Broccoli
• Rocket
• Mustard

Alliums

• Onions
• Garlic
• Spring onions
• Leeks

Umbellifers

• Carrots
• Parsnips
• Parsley
• Coriander

Cucurbits

• Cucumbers
• Courgettes
• Squash

Others

• Summer salad
• Beetroot
• Chard
• Edible flowers

Solanaceae

• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Aubergines (polytunnel or greenhouse)
• Peppers (polytunnel or greenhouse)

Sowing Successionally

Successional sowing is a way of preventing all your plants from reaching the point of harvest at the same time. This means you won't have more produce than you can eat in one go.

In practice, this means that you should sow your seeds little and often. This method works particularly well for fast-cropping plants such as lettuces, radishes and spring onions, and ensures that you won't end up with a bed of mature radishes all ready to eat at the same time.

On the other hand, many crops shouldn't be sown successionally because they take a long time to reach maturity.

Tomatoes are a good example of this, they are sown early in the year and the plants will produce a harvest from midsummer onwards, which you will gradually pick as the fruits on the same plant often mature at different rates.

Some Dos, Don'ts and Other Tips

1. Don't Grow More Than You Have Time For

Starting with just a few plants that you have the time and energy to care for is much better than growing a whole garden of crops that you may end up neglecting.

2. Grow the Right Crops for Your Space and Appetite

Crops like cucumbers and courgettes produce fruits prolifically, so you will only need one or two plants to get a good crop.

You also need to be aware of the eventual size of each plant that you sow. For example, cabbages take up a lot of space and take a long time to grow, while kale is much more space-efficient and you'll be able to pick leaves for months on end.

Similarly, trailing squashes take up a lot of room and are slow to produce just a few squashes per plant, whereas a courgette plant, while big, will provide you with a lot of produce.

3. Be Realistic on Your Planting Plan

The clearest path to success is to be realistic about what you plant. Different plants have different needs and not everything will thrive in your particular soil type or microclimate.

Remember to take into consideration the peculiarities of space that you have and the sunlight that you get when you pick which crops you want to grow.

4. Crop Rotation and Edible Plant Families

When you're picking the crops you want to grow, remember to check which plant family they fall into so that you can decide where they should go in your crop rotation scheme.