Start With the Space You Actually Have

A kitchen garden does not need a half plot or a long border. A raised bed of about 1.2 metres by 2.4 metres will keep a family of four in salads and herbs through the summer, with enough spare for several meals a week of beans, courgettes and chard. If that sounds ambitious, begin with three large pots on a patio and a windowsill of herbs — the principles are identical, only the scale changes.

Work out your light before you sow anything. Most vegetables want six hours of direct sun a day. Salad leaves, chives, mint and parsley will manage on four or five, which makes them the sensible choice for a north-facing yard or a bed shaded by a fence. Tomatoes, courgettes, runner beans and sweetcorn will sulk in shade and reward you with spindly plants and a handful of fruit.

Decide how you will grow, too. Raised beds are easiest on the back and give you control over soil, but any bed dug over and enriched with two buckets of well-rotted compost per square metre will do. Containers need to be bigger than most people expect: a 30cm pot for a single tomato, a 45cm pot for three salad sowings, a deep trough for carrots. Fill them with peat-free multipurpose compost and keep them watered daily in July.

Match Crops to Your Family's Plate

The quickest way to waste a small garden is to grow what nobody eats. Before ordering seed, write down the vegetables and herbs that appear in your meals in a normal week. If you cook with onions, garlic, tinned tomatoes and frozen peas, those are not the crops to prioritise — they are cheap and take months to mature. Grow the expensive, perishable things instead.

For most households that means:

• Salad leaves — cut-and-come-again mixes, rocket, spinach and land cress, which cost a fortune in bags and wilt within a day of purchase.
• Herbs — basil, coriander, flat-leaf parsley, chives, dill and mint, all of which you use in small amounts and resent buying in bunches.
• Fast roots — radish, spring onions and baby beetroot, ready in four to eight weeks.
• Climbing and bush beans — mangetout, French beans and runner beans crop heavily from a small footprint.
• Tomatoes and courgettes — a couple of plants each will cover a family's summer needs.

Quick Wins: Varieties That Earn Their Keep

In a small plot, speed matters more than size. Choose varieties bred for early maturity or for cutting repeatedly rather than hearting once.

• Radish 'Cherry Belle' — sow thinly, pull at four weeks before they turn woody.
• Beetroot 'Boltardy' — reliable, slow to run to seed, good as baby beets at eight weeks.
• Carrots 'Paris Market' — round roots that cope with shallow soil and containers.
• Spring onions 'White Lisbon' — sow in clusters and thin as you eat them.
• Mangetout 'Oregon Sugar Pod' — pick flat pods at 10cm and the plants keep producing.
• Salad 'Salad Bowl' and 'Green Oakleaf' — loose-leaf types that regrow after cutting.
• Courgette 'Defender' — heavy cropping and mildew resistant, which matters in a damp British August.

Buy seed in small quantities. A £3 packet of beetroot contains far more than a 2.4 metre bed needs, and old seed germinates poorly.

Sow Little and Often for a Long Season

The single biggest mistake in a small kitchen garden is sowing the whole packet of salad on one sunny Saturday in April. You will eat leaves for a fortnight and then have nothing but bolted plants. Instead, sow a short row or a small pot every two to three weeks from March to August. Half a metre of row is plenty each time.

Use the gaps. Radishes and lettuce can be tucked between slower crops such as brassicas or along the edge of a bean row and lifted before the neighbours need the room. Sow fast crops under cloches or fleece from late February, and keep a few pots of herbs on a kitchen windowsill for winter use.

A Year in a Small Kitchen Garden

February to March: sow tomatoes, chillies and basil indoors on a warm windowsill. Direct-sow broad beans, early carrots, radish and salad under fleece.

April to May: plant out hardened-off tomatoes and courgettes once frost risk has passed — usually mid-May in the south, early June further north. Sow French beans, beetroot, chard and successional salads.

June to August: keep picking. Beans, courgettes and salads must be harvested every few days or they stop producing. Water in the morning, mulch with grass clippings, and sow a final round of winter salad in late July.

September to November: plant garlic and overwintering broad beans. Sow winter purslane, corn salad and land cress for leaves through the cold months. Lift the last tomatoes green and ripen them on a sunny sill.

Keep It Going

A small kitchen garden rewards routine more than enthusiasm. Ten minutes of picking and watering each evening beats a whole Sunday of neglected work once a month. Keep a notebook of what you sowed and when, and what actually reached the plate. By next spring you will know precisely which three crops deserve the space — and which can go back to the shop.