How to grow baby vegetables, and when to pick them

The thing worth knowing before you start is that baby vegetables are mostly not a special kind of seed. A few are genuinely small varieties, but most of what gets sold as baby veg in a shop is an ordinary variety pulled early, which means you can grow it from seed you already have, and the whole skill is in the timing rather than in the shopping.

It suits a small patch, it suits somebody who wants to see something happen inside a month, and it suits anybody who has watched a row of full sized carrots take five months and lost interest at week six.

What is quick, and when to sow it here

Every window below is written as general instruction rather than a particular season, so it holds whatever year you're reading it.

• Radishes. Three to four weeks, start to finish, and the fastest thing in the garden. Sow most of the year and avoid the worst of the summer heat, because heat makes them hot and woody.
• Baby carrots. Six to eight weeks if you pull them at finger thickness. Sow August through to April, with spring and autumn being the easiest, and use a short stumpy variety rather than a long one.
• Baby beetroot. Pull at golf ball size, about eight weeks. Sow August through to March, and eat the leaves as well because the tops are the best part and most people compost them.
• Salad leaves. Under six weeks if you pick leaf by leaf instead of waiting for a heart. Sow February through to November.
• Snow peas and sugar snaps. Sow April through to August. They want the cool and they'll stop dead in the heat, so this is a winter crop here rather than a summer one.
• Spring onions. Sow nearly all year and start pulling them once they're pencil thick.
• Cherry tomatoes. The slow one on the list at about 10 to 12 weeks, and worth including anyway. Sow or plant from October once the frost risk has passed.

Sow direct, and sow thickly

Quick crops do not like being transplanted, and root crops especially will fork or stall if you disturb them, so the seed goes straight into the ground or the pot. Sow a bit thicker than the packet says and then thin the row once the seedlings are up, because the thinnings off a carrot or beetroot row are the first baby harvest you get.

The bit that actually makes it work, which is succession sowing

Sowing the whole packet in one go gives you forty radishes in one week and nothing for the next two months. Sow a short row every two weeks instead, all year round, and you get a steady trickle rather than a glut. It's the single habit that separates a patch that feeds you from a patch that produces one exciting weekend.

Write the date on a stick at the end of each row. You will not remember otherwise, and knowing what went in when is what lets you work out which sowing did well.

Soil and water

Baby crops are shallow rooted and they're in and out fast, so they want soil that's already in good order rather than a heavy feed. Compost worked through before sowing is plenty, and a light liquid feed with seaweed every couple of weeks keeps them moving.

Water is where they're less forgiving than a full sized crop. A shallow root system in a dry week checks the plant, and a checked radish goes woody and a checked carrot forks. Keep the surface evenly damp through germination, then water deeply a couple of times a week once they're up, and mulch between the rows to stop the top drying out between waterings.

Pick early, and keep picking

Most baby vegetables are ready at about a third of the size the packet describes. The temptation is always to leave them another week to get a bit bigger, and that's usually the week they go tough. Pull one and eat it, and let that tell you whether the rest of the row is ready.

Shop related products

• D.T. Brown Carrot Chantenay, 1000 seed pack. A short stumpy carrot, which is the shape to pick young.
• D.T. Brown Spring Onion, 650 seed pack. Sow a short row every few weeks and pull them pencil thick.
• D.T. Brown Lettuce All Year, 750 seed pack. Picked leaf by leaf it will keep going for months.
• Brunnings Seed Raising Mix 5L. A fine mix for the top of the row so small seed gets good contact.

Did you know we also carry loose seed by the variety in the shop, including a carrot Baby Pack, Early Nantes carrot, Detroit and Forono beetroot, snow pea, sugarsnap pea and a red cherry tomato, along with Seasol and Go Go Juice for the liquid feed. Not all of that is on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf, and the seed racks are in the garden centre.

More from the Homegrown Delights blog

• How to grow carrots, and when to sow them here
• How to grow shallots, and which kind you actually mean
• Soil pH, how to test it and what to do about it

I am constitutionally incapable of leaving a radish in the ground the extra week, which as faults go is one of the more useful ones.

Candeece