A small, narrow veggie bed isn't nearly as daunting as a large vegetable plot. Packed full, it can be amazingly productive and an attractive garden feature in its own right. Crops that grow in containers will usually do equally well – if not better – in a bed.
Good value for space and taste are: All sorts of salads, pea shoots and edible pods; Baby root crops such as beetroot and carrots, or long tapering shallots; Short-lived leafy herbs, such as parsley, chervil, dill and coriander.
Here's how
You will need
All the tools you should need are a trowel, small 'border' fork, hoe, and a watering can with a 'rose'. To set up the bed, you'll need a garden spade and fork, and carpentry tools if you are edging them with wood.
Where to put it
Choose a sunny, sheltered spot. You could convert an existing flower bed, sacrifice a strip of lawn, or build a raised bed on poor soil or a gravelly surface.
How big?
A maximum width of 1.2m makes the centre of the bed within most people's reach, and a length of no more than 3m makes it easy to walk round. It doesn't have to be rectangular – curves and triangles can make better use of an existing space.
Bed edges
Mark out the bed with string and pegs. Raised beds are essential if you're building on poor ground. There are easy-to-construct kits in a range of sizes (Harrod Horticultural ). Edges 15cm deep will be enough to keep a ground level bed tidy; beds built up on poor ground should be 45cm deep.
Preparing the ground
If the ground's been cultivated before, you just need to fork over the bed to a depth of 15-20cm and remove any weed roots. If you're converting a lawn, dig the bed and bury the turf at least 15cm deep (worth the hard work, as it will feed your plants as it decays). If you're building up a raised bed on poor ground, buy topsoil to fill it. In all cases add a soil improver (from garden centres) and spread in a 3-5cm layer over the bed.
What to plant in spring
Pea shoots and pods
Tender, sweet-tasting pea shoots with their curly tendrils are not difficult to grow. Any pea variety will give shoots, but if you buy seeds of a dwarf mangetout, you can let some plants grow on to give a few edible pods.
Sow any time from mid-March to the end of June, but early sowings grow best. Rake over the soil to break up any clods and level the surface. With a trowel, make small holes, 2cm deep and 15cm apart, along a row and drop 3 seeds into each. Two or three rows 15-20cm apart should give you a good harvest. Water if the soil's dry, and once the seedlings emerge, remove any weed seedlings by hand or with a hoe.
Once the plants are 20-30cm high, start pinching off (harvesting) the top 5cm of the pea shoots. Keep watered in dry weather and you should be able to pick for one month. Shoots you miss will flower and give you a small harvest of pods.
Varieties to try
'Dwarf Sweet Green'; 'Delikata'; (Mr Fothergill’s).
Troubleshooting
Peas seeds disappeared?
The culprits are probably mice. Put out covered mousetraps, so birds don't get caught. If you don't like using traps, sow the seeds in pots on a windowsill (three or four seeds to a 4cm pot) and plant the clumps out across the plot.
Plot to plate
Pea shoots are delicious in many salads. Pea pods go with ham, bacon, leeks, onions, mint, cream, prawns, white fish, Parmesan or Grana Padano and baby spinach.
If you pick pea shoots and they look a bit tired before they make it into a salad, put them in a large bowl of iced water for 1 hour and they will perk up.
Summer salad – toss together a handful of pea shoots, rocket and baby spinach leaves with a lemon dressing and shavings of fresh Pecorino.
Young fresh pods are tender, sweet and delicious raw. Halve them lengthways and toss through a crisp green salad before serving.
Recipes with peas and pea shoots
Shallots
Expensive to buy, but almost foolproof to grow, shallots have a crisp texture and distinct flavour. The long slender types are particularly flavourful.
Buy a bag of shallot 'sets' (these look just like the bulbs you buy to eat, but will be free from disease and suitable for growing in the UK).
Rake over the bed, make a slit with a trowel and push in a 'set' so that its tip just protrudes. Space them in a block about 20cm apart each way. Soon each set will start to sprout from the top, and will go on to divide into a clump of up to a dozen shallots. All you need do is remove the weeds from between the clumps, and water them in dry weather.
You can harvest them as soon as they are large enough, and use them fresh together with their green stems. However, for the traditional shallot bulbs, wait until their tops have died down, lift them with a fork and leave them in the sun to dry.
Varieties to try
'Hative de Niort' (Suttons), 'Pesandor' (from Suttons and Thompson & Morgan).
Troubleshooting
Rotting roots
Don't plant shallots in the same place on the bed year after year – this encourages a disease which rots the roots.
Recipes with shallots
Baby beetroot
Freshly pulled young beetroot are sweet and tender, and you can try varieties with yellow or white flesh, or amazing rings of pink and white. Beetroot leaves are edible too – small young leaves add colour to salads, larger ones can be steamed.
Sow any time from April to early July. Rake over the soil until flat, fine and crumbly. Make a small slit 1cm deep across the bed with the corner of the hoe or trowel. Dribble water along it if the soil is dry, then space the seeds out about 1.5cm apart.
Put in a label to mark where and what you've sown, cover the seeds with soil and firm it gently. One row in a 1.2m bed yields about 25 baby beet.
Once the seedlings have emerged, thin them out until they're 3-4cm apart (you may find them in clumps, because the 'seeds' are actually seed casings containing several seeds). The beets will be ready to harvest after 12 weeks, but you can leave them to grow larger for a month or more.
Varieties to try
'Pablo' for red (Suttons and Thompson & Morgan); 'Burpee's Golden' (yellow); 'Albina Vereduna' (white) and 'Chioggia' (pink stripe, all Thompson & Morgan).
Troubleshooting
Beet seedlings nibbled?
Slugs or snails will be to blame. Pre-empt them by laying slug traps, starting before the beetroot seedlings emerge.
Plot to plate
Beetroot goes with soured cream, chives, garlic, cumin, potatoes, mint, horseradish, carrots, anchovies, lamb, smoked sausages and burgers.
For roasted baby beetroots, cut off the tops leaving 2.5cm of stalks, then wash, but be gentle so as to not break the skins. Put in a roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil and season. Bake at 180°C/fan160°C/gas 4 for 1 hour.
Wear rubber gloves when peeling raw beetroot, as the juice will stain your hands. Summer salad – mix grated raw beetroot with grated raw carrot, sliced spring onions, crushed walnuts and toss together with a French dressing.
Recipes with beetroot