It’s all about the planting! Growing your own right through the seasons is very achievable (and with minimum effort required over winter) as long as you get the planting schedule right. It’s fairly simple, so just follow the below:
Early Spring – Plant garlic & onion sets and seed potatoes.
Mid Spring – This is the main planting season for veg crops that will be harvestable in summer and autumn – beans & peas, tomatoes, courgettes & squashes, aubergines, salads, cucumbers, onions, leeks, root veg, cabbages and cauliflower and so on.
Mid to Late Summer – You can plant a few extra crops now for a late autumn/early winter harvest. Brassicas such as kale, broccoli, and cabbages can be planted happily now. You can also plant extra of the faster growing root veggies, like carrots and beetroot, for a Christmas crop.
Early Autumn – this is the time to plant crops to grow over the winter. Some will be harvestable before Christmas, others as soon as the first few days of spring arrive. Crops include lots of healthy leaves, spring greens and winter lettuces, kale, as well as turnips, broccoli and spring onions. For the most part they require little attention over the winter months, so you can easily keep growing even if you only have an hour or two over the weekends to tend to your plot.