Grow Your Own Summer Vegetables

If you want to harvest your own vegetables all year round then produce that ripens in the summertime will be important to you. Your options include herbs, squashes, sweetcorn and lettuce amongst other salad varieties.

If home cooking is important to you, what better than being able to pick fresh herbs right outside your back door? Using a container with a diameter of at least 30cm (12"), or a longer container, fill with a mixture of 80 per cent compost to 20 per cent grit to ensure good drainage. Next, plant up. Parsley, mint (which needs to be confined as it is a voracious spreader. Just pot the plant in a small plastic pot, and plant in the container with the pot rim proud of the compost), thyme, basil, marjoram, coriander, and dill are just a few of the herbs you can grow.

Squashes grow rapidly and in order to sustain that growth, they need plenty of food and nutrients. To grow, place a couple of shovel fulls of manure or compost into a large hole, then top up using the previously dug out soil. This will leave a small mound. Plant the seed in the middle of the mound and give the ground a good watering. Butternut squash, courgettes, small scallopini/pattypan, and pumpkin are your suggested options.

French beans, runner beans and peas are varieties of legume, and as such enjoy plenty of sun and a very rich soil. Dig a long trench with manure or compost lining the bottom. Refill with soil, leave for a couple of weeks to settle. While settling, you can construct the support for the plants. As beans grow by twining, use bamboo or man-made canes and garden string to construct a framework that they can climb up. Peas climb using tendrils, so they will need netting supported by stakes, peasticks (woody twigs, usually hazel or birch prunings), or canes and string to grow up.

The beginning of summer is the best time to plant sweetcorn. It is well worth growing as the taste of cooked sweetcorn which has been home grown is simply amazing. To ensure successful pollination, plant in a block e.g 20 plants, 5 plants to a row, 4 rows with the plants seperated by 45 centimetres. Sow 2 seeds per hole, and remove the weaker plant later. The cobs will be ready when the tassles turn brown and the kernals are yellow and no longer white. An interesting way to plant sweetcorn is using the "three sisters" technique, whereby it is grown along with squash to provide a living mulch, and beans which are given supported by the corn.

Home lettuce is simple to grow and there are plenty of types to choose from. Simply plant the seeds of your chosen variety, or mix several different kinds together. Sow in a row, resowing every 2-4 weeks until September to provide a repeating supply. Water well, and once the plants are sufficiently large, cut as much as you require with scissors. The cut plant will continue growing and can be cut several times. Good varities include little gem, salad bowl and lollo rossa.

Almost anyone can grow vegetables at home. All you require is a small area of ground or space for a few containers, some simple tools and some sound advice. Give it a try and taste better vegetables.