Although I have long given up making new year’s resolutions – spring and autumn feel like more appropriate times to focus on setting goals and ambitions – January is always the moment to start forward planning the new season’s vegetable garden.

So, with the raised beds rock solid after consecutive hard frosts this week, out come the old wooden boxes inherited from my great Aunty Megan (former Land Girl and expert vegetable grower well into her 90’s) containing all of my seeds, and the process of sorting, discarding and note taking begins.

The boxes are organised with simple card dividers by type, covering all of the vegetable groups in an easy to access manner;

– Beans/Peas

– Brassicas

– Roots

– Salads/Leaves/Oriental Greens

– Alliums

– Squash/Courgettes/Sweetcorn

– Tomatoes/Aubergines/Peppers/Chillis

– Herbs

By the time I get to the end of the previous growing season, the boxes have always become disorganised, with late sown winter lettuces and brassicas, spinach, fennel, oriental greens and broad beans all jammed in together, reflecting the order of the last sowings. So the first task is to sort through everything, check expiry dates and discard most things that are out of date. I don’t discard everything, since some seed lasts longer than others, as long as they are stored well, in a cool, dry location, with no major temperature fluctuations.

Legumes can remain viable for many years. Before Christmas I sowed some six year old broad bean seed as a green manure crop, unsure how much would come up and they are now starting to germinate well. Umbellifers, like carrots, parsnips, celery, celeriac, parsley, coriander and dill don’t keep well and their viability dips off sharply in a couple of years. Some, like celeriac, which are notoriously difficult to germinate, are best bought fresh each year or grown from your own collected seed. I refer to this seed longevity chart to help guide my decision making on what to keep. If you have a lot of old seed that you do not want to throw away you can sow a small pot to be kept indoors to check the germination, before committing.

As I sort, I discard any varieties from the previous year that were either unsuccessful, weak croppers or not distinctive or tasty enough to merit growing again. Sometimes it can take a few years to reach this point, after sowing at different times and transplanting to different locations to see if that makes a difference. As I jettison these failed varieties I simultaneously select those that have done well for us and, over the twelve years we have been growing vegetables here, gradually a group of keystone varieties has emerged through this selection process.

Varieties that I now grow every year without fail include;

Cabbage ‘Stanton’ (Tamar Organics)

This has proven to be the most reliable variety here, producing large, tight heads of crisp, white leaves which stand well. This season I plan to successionally sow a number of these for autumn and winter cropping, replacing some of the numerous Savoy varieties I have grown in the past, some of which have not been so reliable. The Savoy I will keep is ‘Vertus’.

Dwarf French Bean ‘Aquilon’ and ‘Cupidon’ (Real Seeds)

‘Aquilon’ is the first bean I sow, starting them off in 9cm pots in the polytunnel in mid-April. Planted outside after all risk of frost in mid-May, we are picking our first beans by mid-June. ‘Cupidon’ follows on a couple of weeks later and is of the type labelled ‘Extra Fine’ in the supermarket, with slim, pointed tender beans of excellent flavour.

Sweetcorn ‘Special Swiss’ (Real Seeds)

A short-growing variety that is particularly good for our windy site. It is highly productive and the cobs ripen over a long period, so that there is a constant supply from early-August to mid-September. The kernels are also slower to toughen, so there is less of a rush to eat them.  

Lettuce ‘Morton’s Secret Mixed’ (Real Seeds)

As the name suggests, a mix of lettuces of various types and colours including lime green, red, flushed and speckled, with leaves smooth, puckered, oak leaf, pointed and ruffled. An easy way to grow a wide selection for mixed salads.

Kalettes (or Flower Sprouts) (Chiltern Seeds)

Having had ongoing difficulty with Brussels Sprouts over many years, about four years ago I started growing these instead. A cross between Brussels sprouts and kale, they are far less fussy and produce reliably throughout the winter. I sow successionally from early to mid-February until late April, aiming to have a total of nine plants, three rows of each at the same stage of growth, to see us through the winter. The tops are delicious and they go on to produce edible flower spikes in very early spring that can be eaten like purple sprouting broccoli.

Courgette ‘Trieste White Half Long Cousa’ (Real Seeds or from Premier Seeds and Sarah Raven as ‘Bianca di Trieste’)

This variety is the earliest to produce for us. It is a very heavy cropper and well flavoured. One of its primary benefits, when faced with the customary courgette glut, is that the chubby, pale green fruits remain tender and seedless until marrow-sized.

Onion ‘Pink Keravel/Rose de Roscoff’ (Organic Catalogue)

Although I grow the standard varieties ‘Sturon’ and ‘Red Baron’ for winter storage, this unusual onion, famed as the strings of onions sold by bicycle-riding French Onion Johnnies in times gone by, is now becoming easier to find. The slightly flattened bulbs are pale pink with a mild flavour when raw, making them ideal for salad use. Deliciously sweet when cooked they are excellent stuffed and roasted.

Borecole ‘Hungry Gap’ (Thomas Etty)

We wouldn’t be without this sweet and tender kale, as it can be sown under cover and direct all year round. Young, baby leaves can be used in salads. Plants put into the polytunnel after the tomatoes are removed in late September crop all winter and then increase production as the days lengthen and warm, to be followed by those planted outside in late summer which produce well into spring. Truly a gap filler, when there is little else to be harvested.

Carrot ‘Long Lisse de Meaux’ (Real Seeds)

A very high yielding, long orange carrot, which is good from a late summer sowing and stores very well. Having had poor germination for many years when sowing carrots in rows on our heavy soil, I have had a successful crop of these in the past two years by broadcasting the seed thinly in broad strips.  

Sweet Wax Pepper ‘Amy’ (Real Seeds)

I have grown this pale yellow pepper for the last five years. An eastern European variety it does not need as much heat as the Mediterranean varieties and so is the earliest to produce. The crisp fruits are sweet and have tender skins. They are excellent sliced into a salad, stuffed and baked or fermented into a tasty probiotic pickle. They keep well for weeks if refrigerated in a salad drawer.

Although I say that I am not one for resolutions, this year there are a couple, specific to the vegetable garden, that I aim to keep in order to stay on track and to make things easier in the future. Firstly, I have a new wooden box, this one with monthly dividers. Every three months I plan to move the relevant seed packets from the more generically organised boxes into this one, which I hope will save me time when it comes to sowing as the season progresses. Until now I have spent a good proportion of my weekend gardening mornings selecting and sorting seeds for sowing.

My second resolution is to finally keep a better vegetable garden diary. Every year I start with the best intentions, but sometime around late April, as the sowing and transplanting calendar becomes more demanding, the entries cease. This means that I have a very sketchy record of when things were sown, potted on and transplanted, and the timing and size of harvests. This does not serve me well the following year, as I have no way of knowing whether a particular crop has been successful (or unsuccessful) due to changes in my growing regime or differences in the weather, so every year is another learning experience, when I could be taking lessons forward.

Whatever happens these are just ways to try and help save time, and not ways to beat myself up, so my main resolution is to enjoy the vegetable gardening as much as possible and to plan for it to be as productive as it can be.

Words & photographs: Huw Morgan

Published 20 January 2023