Vegetable gardening for beginners - the 3 x 3 method

When you first take up your trowel and fork and start planting vegetable seeds for the first time there is a very strong tendency to overdo it or to dive in with no thought of order, outcome or orthodoxy. When the gardening bug grabs you, you're in it for production, nothing else matters. Or does it?

It will help you considerably if you can think a little about what you're about to plant, because if you're in your early years of gardening and you over do it, or go through a season with few vegetables making it to your kitchen table, you might give up. And I don't want that to happen. NEVER give up because it's too difficult - in gardening or anything else. You just need to think about your planting in a different way, work out your strategy and start again. You learn the best lessons from your own mistakes or when times are tough.

The first thing to do if you're planning your first vegetable garden is to decide what you'll plant. To do that effectively, get yourself a good organic vegetable gardening book suitable for the climate you live in, a couple of pieces of paper and a pencil and a cup of tea. Your first step is to write a list of the vegetables you commonly eat over the course of a month. Your list might look something like this:

• Onions
• Potatoes
• Beans
• Peas
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Swiss chard
• Pumpkin
• Zucchini
• Cabbage - white
• Tomatoes
• Avocado
• Lettuce
• Cucumbers
• Beets
• Carrots
• Celery
• Cauliflower
• Kale
• Asparagus

Of your listed vegetables, work out, by reading your book, what can be easily grown in your climate at this particular time of year. Remember, no matter how dearly you want something to grow, it won't grow out of season.

Your list might now look like this:

• Onions
• Potatoes
• Beans
• Peas
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Swiss chard
• Cabbage - white
• Tomatoes
• Lettuce
• Beets
• Carrots
• Celery
• Cauliflower
• Kale

This list is still too long for an inexperienced gardener. Of these remaining vegetables, which are the ones that cost the most when you have to buy them, and which ones are your favourites? Now your list might look like this:

• Onions
• Potatoes
• Beans
• Peas
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Swiss chard
• Tomatoes
• Lettuce
• Celery
• Cauliflower

So let's imagine that you love tomatoes, beans and peas, the others are vegetables you eat often and they are quite expensive. Let's take potatoes off the list, because although they're an excellent backyard crop, and it's much healthier to eat organic potatoes than store bought non-organic ones, potatoes take a lot of room and it's best to start off potatoes when you know a bit more about gardening. We'll put garlic, onions and leeks in the one category - they are all in the same family and can be planted together. We'll take celery off the list as well unless you have a lot of water to give them. Now our list looks like this:

• Beans - favourite
• Peas- favourite
• Tomatoes- favourite

• Onions - all
• Garlic - same
• Leeks - family

• Swiss chard - easy
• Lettuce- easy if you're not in the tropics
• Cauliflower- easy

That, my friends, is a good novice vegetable gardener's list. They could be different in your garden but if you have three vegetables that you are really keen on, three from the same family, so they require similar care; and three easy crops, you'll be eating your own produce before too long with a minimum of fuss.

Our little French hen Heather (salmon Faverolles) with her best friend Martha (buff Orpington).

Before planting though, you have to work out how many of each plant you need. As well as being eaten fresh, your tomatoes, beans and peas can all be either blanched and frozen or made into delicious sauce or relish, so plant as many of them as you can manage. The onions and garlic will store well and when you harvest the leeks, just cut them at ground level and they'll keep growing. So plant plenty of garlic and onions and not so many of the leeks. Swiss chard can be frozen, as can cauliflower, as well as being eaten fresh, so plant plenty of them. And with the lettuces, if you eat two per week, plant six for three weeks, and plant your follow up seeds two weeks after planting. If you intend to grow lettuce all season, plant eight seeds every three weeks - throw out your two weakest seedlings.

And for the rest of it? Don't fret about what you can't grow. Appreciate your successes and focus on growing as many of your favourites as you can. Find a market where you can buy fresh inexpensive produce and buy what you can't grow. However, always keep in the back of your mind that as your gardening skills develop, you may be able to progress to the more difficult crops later. Creating micro-climates can sometimes protect a crop that normally might not grow in your area. Each year add a new batch of three, read your gardening book so you know what conditions they need and aim at producing good quality vegetables using organic methods.

Happy gardening everyone!