Eat your favourite food!

Now you have a plot, you can choose what to eat. Don't feel you have to grow the same crops as everyone else. Be yourself. If you don't like carrots, don't grow them. If you love French beans, plan to sow lots. Only want edible flowers? That, too, is possible.

Quite early on in the learning process, do some research. You will need to know when things are in season, but don't forget to think about holidays: if you are going away, there are ways to make sure you harvest your crops, In fact, it is quite easy to work around seasonality - up to a point.

Look at the space your plots gives you. You can aim to grow at least two crops on one piece of ground - one early and one late, however this does require a little organisation. I always try to start off crops under protection and this could be a greenhouse, window sill or cold frame. The reason for this is that you can control conditions more carefully; in addition, you avoid the competition for slugs, snails and insects.

So, what can you start with? Try some lettuce and/or rocket (according to taste). You can begin with a small seed-tray of each. Don't go mad and sow everything at once because you want be able to keep up with the crops once they start producing. 20 seeds sown every fortnight, for two months, is good successional sowing and will keep you in lettuce most of the summer.