A vegetable is simply any edible part of a plant that we commonly eat. Colloquially, we consider vegetables as parts of plants that we eat as part of a savoury meal, while we think of fruits as being largely sweeter.
Some culinary items that are commonly thought of as vegetables are actually, botanically speaking, fruit. Tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, corn, cucumber, squash, courgette and pumpkins are some common examples.
Vegetables are edible parts of plants used for their calorific and nutrient content, and often make up the bulk or a large proportion of a meal, while herbs, which could also be included in this category, tend to be used more sparingly, to add flavour to a dish.
If you think about vegetables, a range of common annual and biennial plants are likely to spring to mind. But there are perennial vegetables too. Annual vegetables are plants that complete their lifecycles in a single year, biennials have a two-year lifecycle, and perennials can last for a number of years in your garden.
Starting a vegetable garden is often the pathway into growing your own food, which can be an extremely rewarding and satisfying thing to do. Growing your own vegetables at home can help you reduce your reliance on harmful agricultural systems, reduce your carbon footprint, and save you money. It can also simply be a lot of fun.
Here are some of the most popular vegetable plants commonly grown in the UK:
Asparagus / Beetroot / Broad Beans / Broccoli / Brussels Sprouts / Cabbage / Carrots / Celery / Cucamelon / Desiree Potato / Garlic / Garden Peas / Green Beans / Kale / Leeks / Lettuce / Mangetout / Parsnips / Potatoes / Purple Sprouting Broccoli / Radishes / Rhubarb / Rocket / Runner Beans / Shallots / Spinach / Sweetcorn
Then there are also all the fruits commonly thought of as vegetables, such as:
Learning how to care for vegetable plants begins with gaining a better understanding of your garden, and the conditions to be found there. Observation and interaction will help you discover how to grow vegetables in your garden in the best and most productive way.
One of the first decisions that you should make is which method(s) you would like to use.
You can grow plenty of vegetables:
Once you have decided on a method, you need to think about creating your growing area or areas. In an organic garden, it can be a great idea to adopt a no dig approach. This approach involves gardening in such a way that you protect the soil, and disturb it as little as possible. Taking a no dig approach means creating new beds by layering organic matter on top of the soil surface rather than digging or tilling new beds.
Next, you need to prepare and plan to make sure that you can care for your vegetables and maintain fertility in your growing areas over time. You need to select seeds based on the environmental conditions you can provide, and your own personal requirements and preferences.
When choosing vegetable seeds, remember that companion planting can be beneficial. Consider also which herbs, flowers and other plants will be useful for growing in your vegetable garden. It can also be helpful to create a planting plan, so you can maximise yield from your vegetable garden. Think about things like successional sowing and crop rotation when growing annual and biennial crops.
It can be a good idea, before starting your garden, to get some basics in place. Make sure you have a composting system if you do not already compost at home. And consider setting up a rainwater harvesting system.
There are a number of important tasks when caring for vegetables. Your main jobs will usually be:
Most vegetables prefer a sunny and open site, with plenty of light, that is relatively sheltered from prevailing winds and out of any frost pockets. However, there are vegetables that can cope with lower light levels or partial shade – leafy crops like brassicas (members of the cabbage family), for example. And perennial vegetables, in particular, can often do well in the dappled shade beneath and around trees and shrubs in a border or forest garden.
It is important to choose the right location for your vegetable plot/ food-producing area/ kitchen garden. Make sure it is easily accessible – ideally as close to your kitchen as possible so you can enjoy your fresh grown produce right away. It should also be close to a water source – ideally a rainwater harvesting system, and to your compost heap. Avoid, if you can, placing a vegetable plot that will be tended relatively intensively too far from your home, or in too inaccessible a spot.
Since the term vegetable is a non-scientific word, there are vagaries surrounding its definition. As mentioned above, vegetables are parts of plants consumed by humans as food.
This definition could include fruits. However, in culinary circles, vegetables are often defined as foods eaten in a savoury context, while we think of fruits as largely the sweeter edible parts of plants. We often exclude edible plant parts from our concept of vegetables – often in a somewhat arbitrary way.
The difference between the terms is that the term fruit does have a scientific botanical meaning. It refers to a particular part of a plant. While ‘vegetable’ is a much broader and fuzzier category, which often is just defined by culinary and cultural tradition.
Cruciferous vegetables, also known as brassicas, are members of the Brassicaceae family (which is also called Cruciferae). The vegetables within this family are one of the dominant global food crops, and often form an important part of a domestic vegetable garden. Most of the common cruciferous vegetable crops are within the Brassica genus. For example:
Other cruciferous vegetables include members of other related genus, such as:
Root vegetables are simply plants whose main edible part is the root. Root vegetables include:
There are plenty of vegetables that are easy to grow and great for beginners. It is important to bear in mind the growing methods you have chosen and conditions in your area when deciding what to grow. But if you are just starting out, here are ten easy crops to consider:
Which crops you can grow over the winter months will depend on whether you are growing the vegetables indoors, undercover in a greenhouse or polytunnel, or outside in your garden.
Indoors, you can sow seeds for sprouted seeds or microgreens even in the depths of winter. Brassica seeds can be great for this. You can also grow pea shoots on your windowsill.
Indoors, winter is also the time to sow vegetables (technically fruits) like tomatoes and peppers to get them off to a good start before the weather warms and you place them into their final growing positions. You can also start chitting seed potatoes so they sprout with green shoots before you plant them out.
If you have a polytunnel or other undercover growing area, which is not heated but which does offer some protection from frosts, you’ll be able to overwinter a range of vegetable crops, from which you can harvest after the first frosts, or little and often over the winter months. Sow brassicas, leeks and root crops in spring or early summer, to be ready by the following winter, add more leafy greens in July or August for the winter months, perhaps even some new potatoes for Christmas with protection, and overwintering peas and broad beans in September or October.
Undercover or outdoors, a number of brassicas (Kale, Brussels sprouts etc. will withstand winter conditions in most of the UK. In many areas, garlic should overwinter successfully when protected with a mulch. Leeks can remain outside in the winter garden and used as you need them. Carrots, beetroots, turnips, daikon radishes etc. can also only be improved by the first frosts, though must generally be protected or lifted before a harder freeze.
If you plan and prepare wisely, you can grow a wide range of vegetables over the winter months.
You can grow vegetables in a small space. In a small garden or courtyard, on a patio or balcony, there are techniques you can use to grow your own vegetables at home. Even if you do not have any outside space at all, there is a lot you can do on a sunny windowsill, or in another bright spot inside your home.
A range of vegetables can be grown in containers that have a volume of around 20 litres, or other planters and pots. Remember, you can upcycle and reuse containers in a range of different ways.
In addition to considering the potential of container gardening, however, small space gardeners should also think about the vertical space as well as the horizontal area. When thinking about how to use the space, remember that often, the sky is the limit. The yield of a space is theoretically unlimited, or limited only by our drive and imagination.
Vertical gardening techniques involve making the most of this dimension. It can involve:
Growing vegetables in a small space, it can also be interesting to consider other small space solutions – like small-scale hydroponics, for example, or a small-scale aquaponics (‘barrelponics’) system which incorporates fish as well as plants.
Clay soils can be challenging because of their dense, heavy texture. The characteristics of clay soil, unfortunately, mean that it:
But clay soil does have one massive advantage – it is incredibly fertile, and contains and retains more nutrients than other types of soil. Manage clay soil effectively, and take steps to improve it by adding plenty of organic matter, and it can be great for a vegetable garden.
Leafy green vegetables with shallow root systems, which appreciate the higher moisture levels in the upper layers of clay soil. For example:
Brassicas, also known as cruciferous vegetables do well in clay because they like to be held securely in the soil, and the structure clay soil’s structure means it has a firm hold. Brassicas (in the list of cruciferous vegetables given above) should thrive in a garden with a high proportion of clay in the soil.
(Mustard, one of this family, can also be a beneficial green manure, which can help in adding organic matter to improve aeration and drainage in heavy clay soils.)
Crops will high nutritional needs will benefit from the nutrient-rich clay soil types. Examples of crops that will like a rich clay soil because it is high in nutrients include:
Some edible crops don’t just grow well in clay, but also help combat some of the issues with this soil type. For example:
To reduce soil compaction and break up the clay, you should also consider growing root crops and tubers such as:
There are a huge number of variables that will determine how often you should water a vegetable garden. You need to think about:
You may have your own feline friend, or enjoy seeing your neighbours pets in your garden. But cats may not be quite so welcome when they kill birds that you are trying to attract to your bird feeders, or scratch up or dig in your vegetable plot. Worst of all – they will not be welcome when they turn your carefully tended beds into litter trays. So how can you keep cats away from your vegetables?
To deter cats from disrupting your vegetable garden you can:
Physical barriers like fences and walls do not usually deter cats, which can scale them easily. So it is unlikely that you will be able to keep them out of your garden altogether. But you can create barriers around specific parts of your garden – such as your vegetable plot.
If a persistent cat becomes a problem, consider using a frame cage or frame and mesh covering for the beds.
Placing spiky sticks, forks or chopsticks closely spaced around vulnerable plants can also deter them from digging or lounging around in an area of soil and breaking nearby plant stems.
If cats are attracted by the smell of a compost heap, consider creating an enclosed bin or creating a barrier around it to deter tomcats from scent marking in the area.
Since cats often choose the path of least resistance, you can also create partial physical barriers of closely planted prickly plants or thorny shrubs that might encourage cats to take a different route.
Plants that cats do not like the smell of. Plants that are said to deter cats, at least to a degree, are:
These plants won’t keep cats away entirely. But they may deter them from lingering in the immediate vicinity.
Cats also dislike the smell of citrus, dried herbs (from the above plants), certain essential oils (such as citronella) and cayenne pepper. So scattering or sprinkling these things around a vegetable bed might help in keeping them away.
Finally, you can attract cats to a different part of your garden so they don’t damage your vegetables and other crops. Create a sandbox litter area for them. Or attract cats by planting a cat-friendly garden area with:
These are just some tips to help you co-exist happily with feline visitors.
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