Why heritage varieties earn their place in a small garden

Heritage vegetables are the old, open-pollinated sorts that were grown in British plots long before anyone worried about uniformity. They were selected here, in our light, our rain and our short growing season, which is precisely why so many of them shrug off a cool June better than modern hybrids do. Many are also generous in a way that suits a small garden: cut-and-come-again leaves, climbing beans that crop over months rather than weeks, and roots that can be pulled young and sweet.

They carry a second advantage. Because they are open-pollinated, you can save your own seed and get the same vegetable next year, which slowly builds a strain tuned to your own patch of soil. In a plot the size of a couple of beds, that quiet continuity is worth more than any packet promise.

Beans that climb without taking over

Climbing beans give the best return per square metre of anything you can grow, because they use vertical space that would otherwise be wasted. Run them up a wigwam or a simple frame of hazel poles on the north side of a bed, and the ground beneath stays free for salad.

• Runner beans: 'Scarlet Emperor' is the old faithful, reliable even in a wet summer, and the scarlet flowers earn their place in a mixed border. Pinch out the growing tips when they reach the top of the frame to encourage pod set lower down.
• French climbing beans: 'Cosse Violette' produces flat purple pods that turn green on cooking, and 'Cherokee Trail of Tears' gives you both pods and a crop of drying beans for winter.
• Dwarf French beans: 'The Prince' and 'Purple Tepee' stay around 45cm tall, so they suit a wind-swept allotment or a deep container on a patio. Sow a short row every three weeks from late May to mid-July for a continuous supply.

Beans dislike cold, wet roots. Wait until the soil has properly warmed — usually the last week of May in the south, early June further north — and water deeply once a week rather than little and often.

Tomatoes for a cool British summer

Outdoor tomatoes are a gamble, so choose varieties that set fruit at lower temperatures. 'Ailsa Craig' and 'Gardener's Delight' are the traditional choices and both crop well against a warm south-facing wall. For something with more character, 'Yellow Perfection' ripens early, while 'Tigerella' carries handsome striped fruit on compact plants.

Grow them in 10-litre pots of compost-enriched soil if your beds are heavy clay, and treat them roughly: too much nitrogen and you get a forest of leaf and no fruit. Feed with a high-potash tomato feed once the first truss has set. Bush or determinate types such as 'Tumbling Tom' need no side-shooting and are happy in a hanging basket, making them ideal where space is measured in centimetres.

Root crops that make the most of every centimetre

Roots are the quiet workhorses of a small plot. They need little attention, store well, and the old varieties often have more flavour than anything on a supermarket shelf.

• Carrots: 'Paris Market' produces round roots the size of a golf ball, perfect for shallow or stony ground. 'Early Nantes' is a dependable maincrop. Sow thinly in rows 20cm apart and thin to 5cm — the thinnings smell wonderful and save you a job later.
• Beetroot: 'Cheltenham Green Top' is an old Victorian variety with excellent keeping quality. 'Boltardy' resists running to seed, which matters in a hot spell.
• Turnips and swedes: 'Snowball' turnips are ready in eight weeks from a July sowing, filling the gap after early potatoes come out.

Keep the bed free of weeds with a hoe on a dry morning, and water in dry spells to prevent splitting.

Feeding the soil: compost as the spring ritual

Every spring, before anything goes in, spread a 5cm layer of your own compost over the beds and let the worms pull it down. Nothing else you do will matter as much. A two-bin system works well: fill one through the year, turn it into the second in autumn, and it will be ready by March.

Balance it roughly half green material — grass clippings, vegetable peelings, young weeds — and half brown, such as torn cardboard, straw or shredded prunings. A sprinkling of lime or a few handfuls of soil between layers keeps it sweet. Leafmould from a wire bin is slower but makes an unbeatable mulch for woodland-edge crops. Add a little spent mushroom compost or well-rotted manure to hungry crops like beans and courgettes, but keep it away from carrots, which fork in rich ground.

If you garden on clay, compost is the single best cure; on sand, it holds water where nothing else will.

Keeping the plot going and the seed saving

Sow little and often rather than one enormous row. A metre of lettuce sown in April, again in June and once more in August will feed you far better than three metres all at once. Use cloches or fleece in early spring and again from September to stretch the season at both ends.

Leave one or two of your best plants to run to seed — a bean left to dry on the pod, a lettuce gone to flower, a carrot left in the ground over winter. Collect the seed on a dry day, label it clearly with the year, and store it in paper envelopes in a cool, dark tin. Within a few seasons you will have vegetables that are genuinely yours, grown from a small kitchen garden and suited to exactly where you live.