MINI VEG FOR small spaces

If you don't have a lot of room to grow vegetables but want a flavour of home-grown then here are a few crop suggestions and ideas from KG deputy editor Emma Rawlings

- Emma Rawlings

There has been a lot of breeding work done on vegetables in recent years to create some compact varieties which are perfect for patio gardening or for people with only a small patch of earth. You can of course grow some conventional varieties in a different way to cope with smaller spaces.

CLOSE SPACED VEG

Many veg will just be small if you sow and grow at close spacings. It is actually a common problem if trying to grow crops to full size but you could use it to your advantage. If the seedlings are not thinned out well enough and the plants are not given room to grow, you can end up with the final pickings being diminutive. It can work in your favour if you only have a small space to grow veg in. Harvest small beetroot to give you numerous roots but they’ll be golf ball size or smaller. Look for monogerm varieties such as ‘Moneta’, which produce one seedling per cluster so you can sow at closer spacings and have one beetroot per station. Beetroot is normally spaced to about 10cm (4in) between plants. If you halve this or just over you will achieve more roots in the space but they will tend to be smaller.

Carrots can be grown in a large pot and you harvest finger-sized carrots which are delicious. Carrots are normally sown and thinned out to about 5cm (2in) apart. You could grow them 2.5cm (1in) apart in a short row or in a large pot.

LEEKS AND PARSNIPS