The most forgiving vegetables for a first year in a UK garden

Start with radishes, salad leaves, beetroot, chard, courgettes, runner and French beans, potatoes, garlic, onion sets and broad beans. Each one comes up reliably from seed or a set, tolerates a bit of neglect, and crops well enough in year one that you’ll want to grow it again.

The sowing months below are for a typical lowland garden in England and Wales, with the last frost around 20 April and the first around the end of October. In Scotland, the north of England or a frost pocket, push spring dates two or three weeks later. In the south-west, by the coast or in a city centre you can usually go a little earlier.

The ten (or so) easiest crops

Crop	Sow or plant	First pick
Radish	Outdoors, mid-March to late September	25 to 35 days
Salad leaves	Outdoors, late March to early September	25 to 60 days
Beetroot	Outdoors, late March to early August	50 to 70 days
Chard	Outdoors, late March to late August	50 to 60 days
Courgette	Indoors late March to late April, plant out in May	Late June onwards
Runner bean	Outdoors, early May to late June	70 to 90 days
French bean	Outdoors, early May to early August	50 to 70 days
Potato	Plant mid-March to late April	June onwards for earlies
Garlic	Plant early October to late November	Mid-June to mid-August
Onion sets	Plant early March to mid-April, or mid-September to mid-October	June to September
Broad bean	Outdoors late February to late April, or mid-October to late November	Mid-May to late July

Radishes

Radishes are ready so quickly that you find out within a month whether your soil and watering are right. Sow 1 cm deep, thinly, in rows 15 cm apart, from mid-March to late September. The one way to go wrong is letting them dry out, which makes them woody and hot, so sow a short row every fortnight rather than a long one once.

Salad leaves

Mixed cut-and-come-again leaves are hard to fail with. Sow 1 cm deep in short rows from late March to early September, and cut the leaves 2 to 3 cm above the base when they’re about 10 cm tall. They grow back, and one sowing usually gives two or three cuts before it tires, so sow again every few weeks.

Beetroot

Beetroot germinates well in warm soil and isn’t fussy about much else. Sow 2.5 cm deep from late March to early August. Each knobbly “seed” is a cluster of several, so you’ll get small clumps of seedlings: thin them early to one every 10 cm. Pull them at golf ball size for tender roots, or leave some to grow on.

Chard

Chard is the best value plant on this list. Sow it from late March to late August, 30 cm apart, and pick the outer leaves as you need them. It keeps going for months, and a summer sowing will often carry through winter to the following April.

Courgettes

Two courgette plants are plenty for most households. They’re frost-tender, so either sow indoors from late March to late April and plant out in May once frosts are over, or sow straight outdoors from early May to early June. Give each one 90 cm of space and lots of water, then pick at about 15 cm every couple of days. Miss a few days in August and you’ll have marrows.

Runner and French beans

Beans grow fast once the soil is warm and crop for weeks. Both are killed by frost, and the seed rots in cold, wet ground, so don’t rush: sow outdoors from early May, 5 cm deep for runners and 4 cm for French beans. Runners climb to about 2.5 m, so they need a tall frame of canes. Dwarf French beans need no support at all, which makes them the easier of the two in a small bed. Pick both young and often, because once the beans swell inside the pod the plant slows down.

Potatoes

Potatoes ask very little apart from space. Plant seed potatoes 12 cm deep and 30 cm apart, in rows 60 cm apart, from mid-March to late April. As the shoots come up, pull soil over them (earthing up) so the tubers stay covered and never turn green, and to protect the young leaves from a late frost. First earlies are the easiest choice: they’re lifted in early summer, before blight usually arrives.

Garlic

Garlic is planted and then left alone. Push cloves in 2.5 cm deep and 15 cm apart from early October to late November. Most varieties need a cold spell to split into cloves, which is why autumn planting gives bigger bulbs than spring. Weed it, water it in a dry spring, and lift it from mid-June when the lower leaves yellow.

Onion sets

Sets are small onions grown the previous year, and they’re far more forgiving than onion seed. Plant them 10 cm apart with the tip just showing, either from early March to mid-April or, for overwintering varieties, from mid-September to mid-October. Birds like to pull them out before they root, so cover them with netting or fleece for the first few weeks.

Broad beans

Broad beans are hardy to about -10 °C, so they’re one of the few crops you can sow in autumn as well as spring. Sow 5 cm deep and 20 cm apart from mid-October to late November, or from late February to late April. Pinch out the growing tips once the first pods set, which discourages blackfly.

Why these are easy

They have a few things in common. The seeds are big enough to handle or the plants start as sets, cloves or tubers, so germination isn’t a worry. Most are sown straight where they grow, so you don’t need a greenhouse or windowsill space. And most crop over a long period, which means a week away doesn’t ruin the harvest.

What to skip in year one

Some crops are well worth growing later but tend to disappoint first time round.

• Cauliflower needs steady growth with no checks from drought or poor soil, or it makes tiny heads.
• Celeriac needs a long season, lots of water and fiddly early sowing indoors.
• Peppers, chillies and aubergines want months of warmth that most UK gardens can only give under glass.
• Melons are similar, and need a greenhouse to ripen reliably.
• Parsnips are slow and erratic to germinate, so a row can sit bare for weeks.
• Carrots are fine on light soil, but on heavy clay or with carrot fly about they can be frustrating. Try a short row in a raised bed or a deep container rather than a long row in the ground.
• Cabbages, Brussels sprouts and other brassicas grow well, but caterpillars and pigeons will strip them unless they’re netted for the whole season. Kale is the exception worth trying, since it’s tough and crops all winter.

Common first-year mistakes

The most common mistake is sowing everything on one warm weekend in April. Half of it then sits in cold soil and rots, and the rest all matures in the same fortnight. Sow little and often instead, and wait for May before anything frost-tender goes out.

The second is growing too much. One raised bed, planted well and kept weeded, will teach you more than a whole allotment that gets away from you by July.