Start with crops that forgive you

Your first year on a plot is not really about growing vegetables. It is about learning a piece of land — where the sun sits in June, where the water collects after a wet week, which corner the wind rips through, and how deep the topsoil really goes before you hit clay or chalk. The crops you choose should give you room to make mistakes while doing most of the work themselves. That means potatoes, courgettes, beans and onions.

These four are generous, cheap to start, and reasonably forgiving if you miss a watering or forget a hoeing. They also cover a wide spread of the calendar, so there is something to pick from early summer right through to autumn. Wait and there's a bonus: each of them leaves the ground better than it found it, or at least no worse. By the time October arrives you will have a clearer idea of what your plot wants to be.

Potatoes: the crop that breaks in new ground

Nothing earths up a neglected plot quite like potatoes. All that earthing up smothers seedling weeds, and lifting the crop in summer leaves the soil loose, friable and easy to work. Buy certified seed potatoes and stand them in a cool, bright, frost-free place from February so they chit — short, sturdy green shoots, not long pale ones.

Plant first earlies such as 'Rocket' or 'Swift' from late March where the ground has warmed, second earlies like 'Charlotte' a fortnight later. Set them 10–15cm deep, 30cm apart, in rows 60cm apart. As the shoots break through, draw soil up around them until you have a ridge about 20cm tall. Earlies crop in ten to twelve weeks and won't sit in the ground through a late-summer blight risk the way maincrops will. If you want a maincrop, choose a blight-resistant variety and accept that a wet August may still catch you.

Courgettes: plant two, feed the street

Sow courgettes indoors in April, one seed per small pot on its edge, and plant out in late May or early June once the frost risk has passed. Give each plant a metre of space — they sprawl. Set them on a slight mound and ring them with a barrier, because young plants are slug caviar. A beer trap or a night patrol with a torch saves a lot of heartbreak.

After that, they are almost embarrassingly easy. Water deeply and consistently rather than little and often, and give a high-potash feed once flowers appear. Pick regularly, at 10–15cm, while the skins are glossy: leave one to swell into a marrow and the plant decides its work is done. Modern parthenocarpic types set fruit without pollination, which is useful in a poor summer when the bees stay home.

Beans: the reliable protein crop

Beans fix nitrogen in the soil, which your next crop will thank you for, and they crop heavily for months if you keep picking. Dwarf French beans need no support at all and are a good choice for a windy site. Climbing French and runner beans will happily reach two metres up a wigwam of canes, giving you far more from the same patch of ground.

• Sow directly from late May, 15–20cm apart, and protect the seedlings with a cloche or fleece if the nights turn cold.
• Water generously once flowers form, and mist the blossoms in the evening if they are dropping without setting.
• Pick every two or three days. Beans left to go stringy tell the plant to stop producing.
• Mulch along the rows with grass clippings to hold moisture and slow the weeds.

Onions and their easy relatives

Onion sets are far more reliable than seed for a beginner. Push each set into firm ground in March or April so just the tip shows, 10cm apart in rows 30cm apart. Firm them in well — a loose onion bulb sits in a pocket of air and sulks. Keep the bed weeded, but don't overwater; onions grown soft and lush store badly. Stop watering about three weeks before you lift them, and wait for the tops to fold over and yellow before you do. Dry them somewhere airy until the skins rustle, then plait or net them.

Garlic planted in October or November will look after itself through winter and be ready the following July. Shallots and leeks slot into the same rotation, and leeks in particular will stand in the ground right through the hungry gap when little else is ready.

Weeds and soil: do a little, often

The temptation in March is to clear the whole plot in a fortnight. Don't. A bare, dug-over plot will be green again by May, and you will have worn yourself out before the growing season even begins. Work in sections instead. Clear one bed properly, plant it, and cover the rest with cardboard weighed down with compost or manure. No light, no weeds — and the worms will do the digging for you.

Hoe annual weeds on a dry, sunny morning so the seedlings wither on the surface. Perennial roots are a different matter: couch grass, bindweed and docks need lifting out by hand, and rotavating them simply chops one plant into two hundred. Be patient with them, and take them out completely each time you meet them.

Feed the soil as you go rather than all at once. Drop a handful of compost into every planting hole, spread mulch between rows, and let the potato crop and the bean roots do their quiet work. By your second spring the ground will be darker, softer and far kinder — and you will know exactly what you are doing.