What to grow all year round for next to nothing

Growing your own vegetables does not require a large budget, a big plot, or decades of experience. It requires knowing which vegetables to grow and when to sow them. British families have understood this for generations - during rationing, during strikes, during every period of economic hardship, the allotment was the safety net. The knowledge that sustained those families still works today.

This guide focuses on vegetables that cost very little to grow from seed, produce reliably in British conditions, and can be planned so that something is ready to harvest in every month of the year.

Winter (December to February)

Most gardeners treat winter as downtime. The families who fed themselves through the hardest times did not.

Kale is the standout winter crop. Sow in spring, transplant in summer, and it will shrug off frost and snow through the coldest months. Unlike most vegetables, it regrows after cutting, giving you multiple harvests from the same plant. A packet of seeds costs pence and produces enough plants to feed a household all winter.

Leeks stand in frozen ground through January and February when almost nothing else is available fresh. Sow in spring, transplant into deep trenches in summer, and leave them to thicken through autumn. They are there when you need them most.

Savoy cabbage handles temperatures that turn other cabbages to mush. Plant in June, harvest from December onwards. A single head can weigh three or four pounds - that stretches across several meals.

Brussels sprouts occupy the same seasonal slot, and a single stalk produces 50 or 60 sprouts. Frost actually improves their flavour by converting starches to sugars, so leave them out until you need them.

Parsnips and swedes can both be left in the ground through December and January, pulled as needed. Both store well in a cool shed if you need to lift them before a hard freeze. Parsnips develop genuine sweetness after a frost. Swedes bulk out stews and soups with calories that count.

Spring (March to May)

Spring is the critical period - the hungry gap between winter stores running out and new crops coming ready. Planning for it in the previous year is what separates growers who always have something to eat from those who hit empty patches.

Perpetual spinach (technically a type of chard, not true spinach) is probably the most practical vegetable you can grow. It produces pickable leaves for nine months from a single sowing - from March through to November - never bolts, and tolerates dry spells that would knock back most other crops. Start cutting in March and you bridge the hungry gap with almost no effort.

Broad beans sown in November are ready by late spring - June at the latest. They come before runner beans, before peas, and before most other fresh food from the garden. That timing matters. They also fix nitrogen into the soil, improving it for whatever follows.

Spring onions give you something green in just three weeks. Sow them thickly in any spare corner from March onwards and keep sowing every fortnight. They slot between slower-growing crops without taking meaningful space.

Radishes mature in 25 days. Sow them as row markers between carrots and parsnips - they show you exactly where the slower seeds went in, and you eat them before the main crop needs the space.

Summer (June to August)

Summer is when the garden pays back the effort of spring. The key is not to grow everything at once - it is to keep succession sowing so the harvest extends rather than arriving in one overwhelming glut.

Peas are ready from June. Sow in double rows, with the plants supporting each other. Keep picking to keep the plant producing. Homegrown peas eaten fresh are nothing like anything in a supermarket.

Runner beans and French beans both produce heavily from July onwards. Runner beans need a frame - bamboo canes or hazel poles work fine. Pick every other day or the pods turn tough and the plant slows down. Both can be salted or pickled for winter, extending the harvest well beyond the growing season.

Courgettes are one of the highest-return crops per seed. One plant produces 20 or 30 courgettes across a season if you pick them young - finger-sized rather than marrow-sized. That regular picking is the key. Leave them, and you get one watery giant instead of dozens of tender vegetables.

Lettuce, sown successionally every fortnight from April, provides fresh salad through the summer without a shop visit. Harvest outer leaves only and the plant keeps producing for weeks.

Tomatoes need a greenhouse or a sheltered south-facing wall in most parts of Britain, but the effort is worth it. Homegrown tomatoes taste entirely different to supermarket imports. Bottle any surplus as passata for winter.

Autumn (September to November)

Autumn is harvest and storage season. The work now determines how well you eat through winter.

Potatoes lifted in September fill sacks that last until spring if stored in a cool, dark shed. A well-managed patch can produce 200 pounds of potatoes from a single sack of seed potatoes. They are the foundation of nearly every meal through winter.

Carrots pulled in October store for months in boxes of damp sand. A single row produces 50 to 60 roots. They provide vitamin A through the whole winter - a genuine nutritional contribution, not just bulk.

Beetroot can be left in the ground into autumn, or pulled and stored in sand like carrots. Pickled in malt vinegar, it lasts even longer. A packet of seeds costing less than a pound produces 40 or 50 roots.

Onions lifted in August, dried on racks, and plaited into ropes keep from September through to March. Every meal through winter relies on them.

Planning your patch for year-round harvests

The table below summarises what to sow, and when, to keep something growing in every month.

Where to start

If you are new to growing, pick two or three things from this list rather than attempting all of it. The highest-return choices for a first year are:

• Perpetual spinach - almost nothing to go wrong, harvests for nine months
• Potatoes - fill the shed, form the backbone of winter meals
• Kale - zero maintenance through winter, keeps producing when nothing else does

Tracking what you sow and when you harvest is what turns a first growing season into a system. myPatch gives you a simple way to log your patch, plan your sowings by month, and build that knowledge up over time - so next year you already know what worked and when to start it.

The families who fed themselves through rationing and strikes were not doing anything complicated. They were just organised, and they planted early enough.