To grow your own vegetables, or fruit for that matter, can at times seem like a daunting task in the UK. With the bad weather and the long hours spent in the garden, it be difficult not to throw in the towel early and reap what you sow.

However, with the help of Suttons, a renowned retailer of seeds, we’ll help you make the most of your garden and show you how to make delicious meals out of what you grow.

Radishes and Spring Onions

Whether it’s a pot in the garden or sowing the seeds straight into the ground, these two vegetables are easy to grow in the warmer summer weather. They go great with a fresh, flavorsome salad as the spring onion can deliver a sharp and gently sweet crunch, while the radishes give your salads an added depth of pepperiness to your dish.

These vegetables are best grown in plenty of sunlight – so try waiting another month or so until the end of spring – before you start planting your seeds.

Potatoes

This is a vegetable that grows great during the spring time! As a staple of most diets and dishes, potatoes go very well with lean steaks or as part of a jacket potato with tuna.

Growing them is also fun: plant your seeds in a potato bag, then cover them with compost once the green shoots start to sprout. Do this until your potato bag is full; then, you can water them. It will take 10 to 20 weeks for the foliage to go yellow, once this has happened tip your bag upside down to look in wonder at how many potatoes you’ve grown!

Blackberries

As an old time British classic, found in sweet pies and deserts throughout the UK, the blackberry is versatile and easy to grow in your garden; they also go great with overnight breakfast porridge. This is a sweet and yet nutritional breakfast – add rolled oats to either coconut soy milk or usual soy and steep them overnight in the fridge to chill. In the morning, it’ll be a creamy mixture perfect on a warm spring morning.

To grow them, take the plant and place the stem into wires so that you can harvest them when they fruit. They don’t need a lot of light or attention, so they can grow anywhere in your garden; if you don’t want to deal with thorns, then we suggest going for a variety such as the Apache.

Peas

Peas are another hassle-free vegetable to grow – and they sprout well in cooler weather; springtime is always a good time to start the growing process. Once you’ve planted the seeds, you’ll need to make supports for the stems; chicken wire or netting can be used as supports at the end of each row.

You’ll be surprised just how good peas taste straight out of the ground – and they can be used as part of a green vegetable medley – or alternatively, place them alongside a lean meat to finish off the dish with a bit of colour. Remember, what’s great about them is that the more you pick, the more they produce!