Grow your own veg box

Spring vegetables

Image: Spring bounty, first week in May (clockwise from top left): unforced rhubarb; bunching (spring) onion ‘Winter Over’; leek ‘Musselburgh’; radish ‘Rougette’; Swiss chard ‘Bright Lights’; spring cabbage ‘Offenham Myatts Compacta’; asparagus ‘Conover’s Colossal’; spinach ‘Bloomsdale’.

Spring is an exciting time with new crops coming into season one after the other. Careful planning is necessary: of the veg in the photograph, all but radish and spinach were sown in autumn, or are from perennial plants.

Perennials offer the most reliable harvests but initially need more time and space than annual veg. Rhubarb and asparagus can be bulky, with roots that suck up moisture and nutrients once established. Rhubarb can be cropped the year after planting (March to July), but asparagus takes three years to establish well and is cut from late April to late June.

Growth in March and April from newly-sown seeds is often slow in cold, wet soil. Overwintered plants with roots already well developed grow more quickly in any warmer spells.

Planning

Leeks for spring harvest were sown the previous April and planted out in early July, surviving winter as medium-sized plants before putting on a spurt of late growth until early May. They are reliable croppers, as are spring onions from sowings in late August and early September.

Spring cabbage is more difficult as slugs like the seedlings and pigeons strip leaves if plants are not netted. Sow in mid- to late August, choosing appropriate cultivars for hearts or just leaves.

Swiss chard and spinach beet will also overwinter from summer sowings, to give leaves in April and May. Better spinach flavour is enjoyed from true spinach cultivars such as ‘Tarpy’ and ‘Bloomsdale’, from late March to early May. Radish are quickest of all to harvest and mild flavoured when harvested young and tender.

As spring turns to early summer, new vegetables include baby beetroot and carrots, broad beans, peas and a range of salad leaves (including the first hearts of early cultivars such as ‘Little Gem’).

Detailed growing information