Fruit and veg

Growing

Browse 348 guides Open Plant Finder

Grow useful crops in beds, pots or an allotment. Find the right variety, sowing window and harvest timing.

UK seasons Plain advice Free to read

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Useful advice, organised around your next job

British growing seasons are short, so variety choice and timing matter. These 348 guides cover fruit, vegetables and herbs for UK gardens. Each guide gives useful sowing windows, spacing and harvest advice. Start with the crop you want to grow. You can also browse by food type or check the month-by-month planting calendar.

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Start with a popular guide

Quick routes into the questions gardeners ask most often.

Growing Potatoes

Go from chitting to harvest across each crop type.

Growing Strawberries

Get a dependable fruit crop from beds or containers.

How to Grow Garlic

Plant in autumn and judge the right lifting time.

Best Tomato Varieties

Choose varieties that can ripen in British summers.

What to Plant in October

Use a productive sowing window before winter.

From the library

The latest growing guides

348 guides in this section

Fresh shelling peas, flat mangetout and plump sugar snap pea varieties beside a British vegetable plot

Growing 6 August 2026 8 min read

Best Pea Varieties for UK Gardens

The best pea varieties for UK gardens, from early and maincrop shelling peas to mangetout and sugar snaps, plus a simple plan for months of picking.

Runner beans with red, white and pink flowers and hanging pods on a cane wigwam on an allotment

Growing 6 August 2026 7 min read

Best Runner Bean Varieties for UK Gardens

The best runner bean varieties for UK gardens, from Firestorm for reliable pods in hot summers to stringless, long-podded, pot-sized and drying beans.

Cos, red loose-leaf and crisphead lettuces growing in a raised bed in a British kitchen garden

Growing 6 August 2026 7 min read

Best Lettuce Varieties for UK Gardens

The best lettuce varieties for UK gardens, picked by job, from Little Gem for pots to slow-bolting summer types and hardy winter lettuces.

Freshly lifted orange, purple and round carrot varieties on a wooden bench on a British allotment

Growing 6 August 2026 7 min read

Best Carrot Varieties for UK Gardens

The best carrot varieties for UK gardens, matched to the job: pots, heavy clay, sweet raw carrots, carrot fly resistance and winter storage.

Rows of lacy white Ammi majus and a lime-green filler flower growing behind netting in a UK cutting garden

Growing 18 July 2026 10 min read

Filler Flowers: The Best to Grow for Cutting

The best filler flowers to grow in a UK cutting garden, from Ammi and Orlaya to Bupleurum and Nigella, with sowing times, cutting tips and how to use them.

Sweet alyssum in flower, a low white carpet of tiny blooms spilling over a stone path in a hillside garden

Growing 18 July 2026 10 min read

How to Grow Sweet Alyssum for Scented Edging

How to grow sweet alyssum in the UK: sow on the surface, plant 15cm apart, and trim it back in July for a second flush of honey-scented flowers.

Love-lies-bleeding amaranthus with long crimson rope-like tassels, tied to a cane in a suburban back garden

Growing 18 July 2026 10 min read

How to Grow Amaranthus: Tassels You Can Eat

How to grow amaranthus and love-lies-bleeding in the UK: sow warm under cover, plant out after frost, stake early, then cut, dry or eat the crop.

Pink Amarine trumpet flowers on tall bare stems against a lichen-covered stone wall in a seaside garden

Growing 18 July 2026 10 min read

How to Grow Amarine, the Autumn Nerine Hybrid

How to grow Amarine in the UK: plant bulbs in spring with the neck showing, give them a hot dry summer spot, and enjoy pink trumpets in autumn.

Ammi majus in flower, flat white lacy umbels on tall slender stems across an open cut-flower plot

Growing 18 July 2026 9 min read

How to Grow Ammi Majus: Autumn Sowing Wins

How to grow Ammi majus in the UK: why September sowing gives taller, earlier plants, how to support and cut it, and why gloves matter for the sap.

Canterbury bells with tall spires of purple, pink and white bells in a suburban garden border

Growing 18 July 2026 8 min read

Canterbury Bells: The Two-Year Wait Explained

How to grow Canterbury bells in the UK: sow on the surface in May or June, plant out in autumn, keep crowns dry in winter and get bells the next June.

Jacob's ladder with lavender-blue flowers above ladder-like leaves in a suburban UK back garden border

Growing 18 July 2026 8 min read

Polemonium: Jacob's Ladder That Behaves

How to grow Polemonium (Jacob's ladder) in UK gardens: best varieties, planting in part shade, dividing, stopping self-seeding and avoiding mildew.

Solomon's seal with arching stems and hanging white green-tipped bell flowers in a shady garden

Growing 18 July 2026 9 min read

Solomon's Seal: Beat the June Sawfly

How to grow Solomon's seal in UK shade: planting rhizomes, the best Polygonatum for dry shade, and how to stop sawfly larvae stripping the leaves in June.

Welsh onions with hollow blue-green leaves and white stems growing in a raised allotment bed

Growing 18 July 2026 9 min read

Welsh Onions: The Onion You Plant Once

Welsh onions are perennial bunching onions you cut again and again. How to sow, harvest, divide and feed a clump that crops for years, even in winter.

Sky-blue corydalis flowering above ferny leaves in a shady border by a brick wall in a UK garden

Growing 17 July 2026 9 min read

Corydalis: Blue and Yellow Types for Shade

How to grow corydalis in UK shade: moist, leafy soil for the blue types, why they vanish in July, tough yellows for dry walls and spring Corydalis solida.

Red and yellow gaillardia blanket flowers in a sunny cottage border by a white picket fence

Growing 17 July 2026 9 min read

How to Grow Gaillardia: Months of Flower

How to grow gaillardia, the blanket flower: full sun, sharp drainage and regular deadheading keep this short-lived perennial flowering from June to frost.

Coral and pink hardy gerberas flowering in a sunny gravel-mulched border in a suburban UK front garden

Growing 17 July 2026 11 min read

How to Grow Gerberas Outdoors: Hardy Types

How to grow gerberas outdoors in the UK: pick hardy Garvinea types for borders and pots, keep the crown dry, and bring florist gerberas in for winter.

Red crimson flag lily Hesperantha coccinea flowering beside a pond in a hillside garden in autumn

Growing 17 July 2026 9 min read

How to Grow Hesperantha: Autumn's Last Flower

How to grow hesperantha, the crimson flag lily once sold as Schizostylis: plant in sun and moist soil for red and pink flowers from September.

Purple liatris (blazing star) spikes flowering among grasses and rudbeckias on an allotment

Growing 17 July 2026 9 min read

How to Grow Liatris: The Top-Down Spike

How to grow liatris (blazing star) in the UK: plant corms in spring in full sun and free-draining soil, pick the right variety, and stop winter rot.

Streptocarpus with purple trumpet flowers above long soft leaves in a terracotta pot on a city windowsill

Growing 17 July 2026 10 min read

How to Grow Streptocarpus on a Windowsill

How to grow streptocarpus, the Cape primrose, indoors: bright indirect light, careful watering, a high-potash feed, a cool winter rest and leaf cuttings.

Red-flowered kalanchoe Flaming Katy in a terracotta pot on a sash windowsill

Growing 17 July 2026 10 min read

Kalanchoe Care: Make Flaming Katy Rebloom

Kalanchoe care made simple: water Flaming Katy only when dry, keep it above 10°C, and give it 14-hour nights for six weeks so it flowers again.

A raised bed full of mixed calendula and borage flowers behind a red-brick semi-detached house

Growing 16 July 2026 8 min read

Chaos Gardening: Use Up Old Seed Packets

Chaos gardening explained: how to scatter-sow leftover seed packets in one bed, when to sow in the UK, and the one thinning job that makes it work.

Wooden cold frame of salad seedlings sitting on a steaming bed of strawy manure on a frosty winter morning

Growing 16 July 2026 8 min read

Hotbed Gardening: Free Heat from Fresh Manure

How to build a hotbed from fresh horse manure in a UK garden: the right manure, size, when it is safe to sow, what to grow and how to stop overheating.

A hugelkultur mound of birch logs and soil with young beans climbing canes on a British allotment

Growing 16 July 2026 10 min read

Hugelkultur in the UK: Where It Actually Fails

Does hugelkultur work in the UK? Where a log-cored raised bed helps, why it struggles on wet clay, which wood to use and how to build one above ground.

Two cherry trees in full white blossom in a suburban back garden with a collie lying on the grass beneath

Growing 15 July 2026 9 min read

Cherry Pollination Groups: Why Two Trees Fail

Cherry pollination groups explained simply: which cherries pollinate each other, why two trees can still give no fruit, and the easy self-fertile fix.

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