10 Super Easy Spring Veg To Grow

Saturday 19th March is the Spring Equinox and officially the first day of Spring yippee. That means sunnier days, lighter evenings and most importantly more time to play in the garden! It also means it’s time for me to get busy growing veg again so to help you along, here are my TEN easiest Spring veg to get growing…

Here we grow!

Before you start to grow any veg, take a minute to remove any weeds or large stones from your veg beds and give them a wee hoe over. If you haven’t already added a soil improver over winter now is a great time to add some nutrients to help your veg grow big and strong (just like me!). Done? OK, let’s go…

1. BEETROOT

This is one of my favourite root vegetables to grow as it is super-duper easy. Beetroot prefer a well drained soil so add some sand if yours is a bit sticky. Now, just sprinkle some seeds in a long row and gently cover. As the seedlings come through thin them out to allow big juicy beetroot to grow.

2. SALAD

Now under the heading of “Salad” I am covering lettuce leaves, rocket and spinach as they are all equally easy to grow. I especially love the “cut and come again” salad leaves as they just keep on growing the more you eat them. Wowsers!

3. RADISH

You have got your salad growing so you will need some radish growing with it. The best thing about radish is how quick it grows. Within a few days you will see it popping up. Sow successional rows so you always have radish to eat.

Prep your soil then sow your seeds in a nice neat row

4. PEAS

Another easy-peasy (ha, see what I did there?!) veg to grow and yummy to eat (it’s one of Tilda’s favourites!) If you don’t want to train big tall ones up lines then opt for a dwarf bush variety. I love popping the peas out of their pods!

5. POTATOES

An absolute staple in our garden and super easy to grow. Buy some seeds potatoes and let them chit on your window sill for a couple of weeks before burying them deep in your veg patch. Cover over the leaves as they pop through (this is called “earthing up”) and you will have a yummy batch of tatties come summer!

6. ONIONS

Another easy one, just buy onion “sets” which are teeny weeny onions and plant them in your veg area. They will soon grow into much bigger onions for you to pick.

Teeny weeny onion sets!

7. SWISS CHARD

Not only is swiss chard super healthy (it is full of vitamins and minerals) but it is also soooooo pretty. As well as growing it in your veg patch you can grow it in your flower beds where its colourful stalks will be a lovely addition to the garden.

8. TOMATOES

If you are an expert like me then you can grow a wide variety of tomatoes in your greenhouse. But here’s a secret tip, choose a “tumbler” or “bush” variety and they will be super happy growing in a pot in a sunny corner of your garden. The bonus is you don’t have to “pinch out” this type of tomato or tie them up as they grow. And they will give you the most delicious cherry tomatoes you have ever tasted! And much easier than going to the supermarket to buy them!

9. COURGETTES

This year I am growing both green and yellow courgettes. I have planted the seeds in little trays in the house and when they are a LOT bigger I will plant them outside in big pots where they will give me lovely courgettes all summer long. I’ll need to be fast though to beat the cheeky snails who love them too!

Here I am checking for courgettes

10. SPRING ONIONS

Well it wouldn’t be a Spring veg blog without a Spring Onion would it? Like beetroot, just sprinkle some seeds in a line and thin out the seedlings as they come through. Couldn’t be easier!

Happy growing readers!

Lulu xx

Cor-gette!

I love my seasonal veg. It tastes so yummy when it’s picked from the garden and is on your plate a matter of minutes later. This week my blog is all about courgettes. From how to grow them to a super yummy courgette cake recipe it’s ripe for the reading!

Cor-gette!

Funny Courgette Facts

• The courgette is called zucchini in America
• It is part of the gourd family along with pumpkins and squash
• If you let a courgette grow bigger it will become a marrow!
• You can also eat the flower of the courgette
• The biggest courgette ever recorded was over 1.76m long! Wowser!

Growing Courgettes

Waaaaay back in Spring I told you all about how to grow seeds. One of the ways that we spoke about was using the Twigz mini greenhouse. I used mine to plant a range of lovely veg and flowers and one of those was courgettes.

Over the months the seedlings have been nurtured from mini greenhouse to bigger greenhouse to bigger pots. Make sure you water them LOTS along the way. I have loved using my colourful Twigz tools to help me dig holes, rake soil, water the plants and carry compost to help make my courgettes grow well.  My courgette plant now sits happily on the edge of one of our raised veg beds and it has been giving us some lovely courgettes.

There are all sorts of lovely things you can do with courgettes such as adding them to pasta sauces, soups, tarts, making frittata or even pickling them! But one of my favourite things to do with courgettes is to make cakes with them, yum! Here’s my courgette muffin recipe (1) – it tastes so good you won’t believe it has lots of fruit and veggies in it!

Courgette Muffins

You will need:

• 50g courgettes
• 1 apple, peeled and cored
• 1 orange, halved
• 1 egg
• 75g butter, melted
• 300g self-raising flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 100g golden caster sugar
• handful of sultanas
• 1 tub soft cheese mixed with 3 tbsp icing sugar, to make icing

To make:

1. Brush the muffin tin with oil or add some muffin cases. Ask your grown-up to switch the oven to 190C/ 170C fan/gas 5.

2. Grate the courgettes and put them in a large bowl. Grate the apple and add to the bowl. Squeeze the orange and add the juice to the bowl.

3. Break the egg into a bowl. Stir the butter and egg into the courgette and apple mix.

4. Sieve the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into the bowl. Add the sugar and sultanas.
Mix with a spoon until everything is combined, but don’t worry if it is lumpy.

5. Spoon the mixture into the tin. Ask your grown up to put it in the oven and cook for 20-25 mins.

6. Cool in the tin, then spread some icing on each.

Yummy courgette muffins

If you haven’t already grown them this year make sure they are on your list for next year. Super easy, versatile and tasty. Cor-gette!

Lulu xx 

1. Thanks to the clever people at BBC Good Food for the recipe for the Courgette Muffins

10 Easy Peasy Veg To Grow This Spring

You have seen in recent weeks I have been busy sowing seeds and getting a good head start for Spring. However, I know some of you maybe don’t have the time, space or even the inclination to get involved with the whole propagating indoors malarkey. Don’t worry though, there are LOADS of easy PEASy vegetables you can grow straight into the garden. Here is the “Lulu’s Garden” Top Ten veg to grow this Spring. Oh, and a quick and easy craft project to make your own plant labels too!

These teeny tiny sets will grow into big onions!

1. Beetroot

Beetroot is really easy to grow and yummy to eat. And it makes your hands go funky colours 🙂 Just sow a row of seeds, cover them over and watch them grow. Remember to thin out those seedlings as they come up so you can make room for some lovely big beets.

Gather your sets, seed potatoes and seeds
in a funky bucket like this one from Twigz (2)

2. Radish

Radish grow super fast, even faster than me! You just need a small area and just follow the same rules as beetroot and you will have some funky radishes to add to your salads in just a few weeks.

3. Peas

That’s right, I told you it was easy-PEASy! Sow your seeds, leaving some space between each one. Peas will need some support so they scramble upwards so add some canes and string. You can buy special varieties which are bushier and perfect for growing in pots too if you have less space.

Make sure you weed and prepare your
veg beds before you sow your seeds

4. Lettuce

Like radish, lettuce grows really fast and you will have your own salad in just a few weeks. I like sowing a mixed salad with different types of leaves in it and you just cut some when you need it and it keeps on growing. How clever is that?!

5. Tomatoes

Regular reader will know all about what keen tomato growers we are. We have all sorts of wonderful tips in our Tasty Tomato blog. You can grow them in a greenhouse but if you don’t have space go for a bush or tumbler variety which grows brilliantly in pots or even hanging baskets!

6. Potatoes

We all love potatoes don’t we? I love digging them up at the end too. Loads of fun! Growing them is dead easy, just plant them deep in the soil and cover up with soil. As the leaves come through keep “earthing up” (covering over with soil, lot’s of fun!) ’til they are way high in the air! You can grow them in a bag on your patio too if you don’t have a veg patch.

Our potato crop

7. Spinach

Spinach is another easy one to grow, just like lettuce. You can add it to salads or any of your cooking. Apparently it makes you really strong like Daddy too!

8. Courgettes

Courgettes are great to grow and I like to grow them in among our flowers rather than in the veg patch. They have lovely big leaves and funky yellow flowers (which you can eat too) and then the lovely courgettes appear. Make sure you water around (not over) the plant so the courgettes don’t rot. And watch out how quick they grow too or you will have marrows before you know it!

9. Onions

Onions are the basis of most meals we cook so we need a LOT of them. From pastas and risottos to pies and curries they are an essential ingredient which are really easy to grow. Growing them from teeny onion sets is really simple and they need very little attention other than some watering and weeding as we go. We always grow both white and red onions as well as shallots.

Make sure you space your onion sets out nicely like me

10. Spring Onions

You can’t have a spring veg list without Spring Onions can you?! Another one where you grow seeds in a row and thin out as seedlings come through. A lovely addition to salads and all sorts of cooking.

If you have never grown anything before why not choose just one thing off this list and give it a try? Whether it’s salad in a window box, tomatoes in a pot or potatoes in a bag there is always space to give it a bash. Let me know what you choose to grow this year and even better, send me some pics!

And don’t forget to label what you have sown so you remember what will be coming up. Forget expensive plant markers, why not make your own out of old lollipop sticks (1)…

• Lollipop sticks
• Paint
• Marker Pen
• Varnish

Make your own plant labels

To make:

1. Paint your lollipop sticks funky colours and leave to dry. You could draw pictures of what you are growing, add glitter or even make little people out of them too!

1. Thank you to the wonderful, clever people at the RHS for the idea to make your own plant labels. For more cool projects like this read the fabulous “RHS Garden Projects” book.

2. Also, a BIG shout out to the cool people at Twigz who have designed a great range of garden tools for children, some of which you can see me using in this blog. I will tell you lots more about them in future blogs…