WITH costs escalating all around us, there’s never been a better time to grow your own food, particularly those crops that you’re able to store and enjoy throughout the winter.

To help you plan your vegetable garden this year, we’re highlighting food that’s easy to grow, that you can keep and use out of season, and will provide healthy options to help your food budget stretch a little further.

Herbs

Requiring very little space, herbs can be cut and saved regularly all summer and either dried or frozen for you to use throughout the winter.

Although drying is the traditional way to preserve your herbs and the bunches look great in any kitchen, often giving a lovely aroma, quick-freezing your herbs has the advantage of rapidly capturing the essential herbal oils that provide the taste. Remember that the sooner you freeze your herbs after cutting, the better the flavour you’ll seal in.

If you’re freezing herb leaves, lay them flat on a tray, remove once frozen and store in a sealed bag or container. Another popular freezing method is to chop the herbs as you would if you were using them the same day, fill ice-cube trays with a portion per cube and add enough water to fill the cube. As with the leaves, remove the cubes when set and store in a sealed bag or container.

For herbs that are easy to grow, give plentiful crops and freeze well, you might choose basil, chives, dill, lemongrass, mint, oregano or sage.

If you want to dry your herbs, small-leaved varieties such as lavender, rosemary, tarragon, bay and thyme will do best (and give great fragrance).

Salads & Garnish

Although salad vegetables don’t generally store well, we thought it was worth mentioning that you can extend the growing season by using the kitchen windowsill or a modern grow table when it’s too cold to grow your salad outdoors.

Salad grows successfully when there’s sufficient light and warmth, and since these conditions are regularly found in our kitchens, why not experiment – for a few inexpensive seeds, you could produce the freshest out-of-season salads for your family!

Many salad leaves can be harvested within a few weeks of sowing and there are many ‘cut and come again’ varieties which allow you to cut and enjoy the salad leaves without cutting the plant itself.

Lettuce Red & Green Salad Bowl is a good, reliable ‘cut and come again’ variety, or choose one of the Salad Leaf mixtures (there’s always a good selection in stock) for a selection of different leaves.

Seeds are relatively inexpensive (on average you’ll get several hundred seeds for about £2). Many varieties are ready to eat within 21 days and so it’s a good idea to sow a few seeds every seven to 10 days to ensure a constant supply.

If you’d love to grow fresh salad out of season but struggle for space, why not try Microgreens – these miniature vegetables will grow in the smallest of containers and provide you with garnish in just a few days. There’s lots of choice for colour and taste, and to enjoy fresh, flavoursome garnish all year round, seeds should be sown little and often.

Root vegetables

Amongst the easiest to grow and store, root vegetables are a traditional favourite and, with great nutritional value, they have been the mainstay of cold-weather meals for generations.

Sown in spring, many root vegetables – carrots, parsnips, swedes and turnips, for example – can be left in the ground until they’re needed, although you should ensure that they’re well protected from frost damage with a good mulch of straw, cardboard or fleece.

If you’re in an area where mulch is insufficient to provide protection over winter, lift and store your vegetables.

Amongst our favourite customer varieties are Carrot Nantes (an early variety), Carrot Paris Market (fast-maturing, snack-size round carrots) and Carrot Autumn King (a high-yielding, maincrop), Parsnip Hollow Crown (high-yielding), Turnip Purple Top Milan (early variety), Turnip Snowball (white, summer turnip) and the aptly-named Swede Best of All.

If you’re in a frost-free area, vegetables such as beetroot and radish can be left in the ground until required. But they can be damaged by frost and so in East Lothian we advise that you lift and store your beetroot and radishes.

Our best-sellers include Beetroot Boltardy (good early), Beetroot Detroit (good colour and flavour), Radish Scarlet Globe (quick crop of crisp red globes) and Radish French Breakfast (crisp cylindrical, flavoursome roots).

Before storing any vegetables, gently brush off any loose soil and check they are in good condition before storing in a cool, dark place.

Vegetables with thinner skins may dry out in storage and these should be stored layered in boxes, with sand between the individual roots to minimise moisture loss.

Winter garden vegetables

Some of our favourite vegetables actually benefit from being left in the garden over winter and it’s often said that their flavours even improve with frost!

These hardy vegetables, such as leeks, Brussels sprouts and cabbage, can be sown now and harvested as required from late autumn onwards.

There are too many reliable, high-yielding varieties of sprouts and cabbage to mention here but we have to mention the best-selling leek variety – Leek Musselburgh – an obvious choice for East Lothian gardens!

We hope that this has given you some ideas about growing your own food and storing it. If you need more advice, the knowledgeable and experienced plant team at Merryhatton will be delighted to help you choose what will work best for you – we love any excuse to chat gardening!