Mixed salad – One of our cut-and-come-again packs can make up to 40 of those salad bags you buy in the shops and certainly the taste of the summer. The trick is though to stagger the sowing in a handkerchief sized pot or plot, a good pinch of seeds and then cover with 1cm soil and water, and keep watered. Then cut, wash and serve.

Pac Choy – A high quality Chinese vegetable, expensive to buy and being from the Brassica family, it can be sown in the summer for an Autumn Winter harvest. It can be blanched or roasted, but is best in a wok to make a whole host of Authentic Chinese and Oriental dishes.

Italian basil – Basil has to be the ultimate taste of summer which can be bottled! Fresh homemade pesto Genovese is so easy to make using a mortar and pestle, good home grown basil grown in the ground and not in pots, Italian pine nuts, parmesan Reggiano PDO, Ligurian Olive oil and a pinch of salt. Always serve with Trofie pasta that catches the basil flakes, some diced boiled peeled potatoes which soak up the green oil, and some chopped fresh green beans.

Dwarf Nasturtiums – Not only are Nasturtiums a great companion plant, especially for beans, but they are edible too with a wonderful peppery flavour not dissimilar to rocket, but much much more colourful in the salad bowl. They also attract bees and other pollinators and look beautiful in the garden. Win win win….

Cavolo nero Kale – a classic from Tuscany found in every British Victorian walled garden and brought home by hoards of British visitors to this chocolate-box part of Italy, so popular was it. Hardy in the winter, it can be picked right through, often until the weather starts to warm in late Mar. Used to make the national dish of Florence, a stew called Ribollita Toscana with borlotto beans, a ham hock, the kale and stale toasted bread covered in olive oil.