What to Grow in Winter

Beetroot

vegetable · Easy

Deep earthy sweetness with striking colour. Sow little and often for a long harvest window.

Blackberry

fruit · Easy

Vigorous and deeply productive once established. A thornless variety on a sunny fence will yield kilos of fruit from late summer into autumn with almost no intervention.

Broad Bean

vegetable · Easy

A British growing tradition. Sow in autumn for an early crop or in late winter for summer. Blackfly is easily managed: don't let it put you off.

Calendula

flower · Easy

Bright orange and yellow pot marigolds that flower continuously from late spring to the first frost. Edible petals, excellent for pollinators, and a reliable companion plant: one of the most useful flowers in any kitchen garden.

Chives

herb · Easy

Mild onion flavour with delicate purple flowers. Cut back regularly for a continuous supply of fresh snipping leaves.

Garlic

vegetable · Easy

A slow-growing kitchen staple with intense flavour. Plant in autumn for the biggest bulbs and earliest harvest.

Kale

vegetable · Easy

Hardy and nutritious. Flavour improves after the first frost: a winter staple.

Lettuce

vegetable · Easy

Fast-growing and versatile. Sow every two weeks for a continuous harvest all season.

Marigold

flower · Easy

A companion planting essential. Deters pests and brings colour to any growing space.

Mint

herb · Easy

Vigorous and fragrant. Grow in containers to keep it in check: harvest often for a continuous supply of fresh leaves.

Onion

vegetable · Easy

A kitchen essential. Grow from seed indoors or plant sets directly for a reliable midsummer harvest.

Pak Choi

vegetable · Easy

Fast-growing Asian greens with crisp stems and tender leaves. Ready in as little as 4–6 weeks from sowing. Perfect for spring and autumn gaps when other crops are slow.

Peas

vegetable · Easy

Sweet and tender straight from the pod. Easy to grow with the right support in place.

Rhubarb

fruit · Easy

A UK allotment icon that asks for almost nothing in return. Plant crowns once and pull tart pink stalks for decades to come.

Rocket

vegetable · Easy

Fast, peppery and endlessly useful in a salad bowl. Rocket is one of the quickest crops you can grow, ready in as little as four weeks and happy in beds, containers or on a windowsill.

Rosemary

herb · Easy

Hardy, drought-tolerant and evergreen. Once established, rosemary needs almost no attention and can be harvested year-round.

Shallots

vegetable · Easy

Sweet, mild and versatile in the kitchen. Each planted bulb multiplies into a cluster of 6–12 shallots by harvest time. Far easier to grow than onions and stores well through winter.

Spring Onion

vegetable · Easy

One of the fastest and most useful crops in the kitchen garden. Sow every few weeks and you'll have fresh spring onions continuously from spring to late autumn.

Swede

vegetable · Easy

A tough, undemanding root that shrugs off a UK winter. Sow once in early summer and lift sweet, earthy roots from autumn right through to spring.

Sweet Pea

flower · Easy

Intensely fragrant climbing flowers. The more you pick, the more they bloom: a British garden essential.

Thyme

herb · Easy

Hardy and intensely aromatic. Thrives in poor, dry soil with full sun: one of the easiest herbs to grow.

Apple

fruit · Easy–Medium

The most forgiving fruit tree for a UK garden: disease-resistant varieties exist for almost every situation, and a well-chosen rootstock keeps even a small garden in apples for decades.

Bay

herb · Easy–Medium

A slow-growing evergreen valued for its leaves, used fresh or dried year-round in cooking. Happy in a large pot for many years, and far more shade-tolerant than most culinary herbs.

Cabbage

vegetable · Easy–Medium

A British kitchen garden staple available almost year-round with the right variety choices. Spring, summer, autumn and winter types mean there's always a cabbage ready to harvest.

Carrot

vegetable · Easy–Medium

Sweet and earthy straight from the ground. Needs loose, stone-free soil for long, straight roots.

Fig

fruit · Easy–Medium

Surprisingly reliable in a warm, sheltered UK spot once its roots are restricted: the tree that most rewards being planted somewhere it can bake against a sunny wall.

Kohlrabi

vegetable · Easy–Medium

An oddball brassica that crops fast and tastes like a mild, sweet turnip. Sow in succession through summer for a steady stream of crisp, golf-ball-sized bulbs.

Leek

vegetable · Easy–Medium

A British winter staple with a long, generous harvest window. Sow early, transplant in summer and harvest through the coldest months when the garden is bare.

Parsley

herb · Easy–Medium

Slow to start but worth the wait. Sow early indoors for a long, productive harvest from late spring through autumn.

Parsnip

vegetable · Easy–Medium

The sweetest root vegetable in the winter garden. Parsnips are slow to mature but reward patience with deep, honeyed flavour: best harvested after the first frosts of autumn.

Plum

fruit · Easy–Medium

One of the most forgiving UK fruit trees: many varieties are self-fertile, crop young, and reward almost no attention beyond summer-only pruning.

Potato

vegetable · Easy–Medium

The most satisfying crop to harvest. Plant seed potatoes in spring, earth up through early summer, and dig the first earlies in June. Few things in the garden beat new potatoes straight from the ground.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

vegetable · Easy–Medium

A long-season crop that earns its space. Sow in spring, harvest tender purple spears through late winter when almost nothing else is cropping.

Raspberry

fruit · Easy–Medium

One of the most rewarding soft fruits for the allotment. Plant summer-fruiting canes and you'll have a picking row that returns every year with minimal effort.

Sage

herb · Easy–Medium

A perennial Mediterranean herb that earns its space year after year. Grows well in free-draining soil with full sun. The grey-green leaves carry the strongest flavour before the plant flowers.

Spinach

vegetable · Easy–Medium

Fast-growing and nutrient-dense. Sow in spring and again in late summer to avoid the bolting season.

Strawberry

fruit · Easy–Medium

The most rewarding fruit to grow at home. Plant crowns in late summer or early spring for a bumper harvest the following June.

Tomato

vegetable · Easy–Medium

Rich, sun-ripened fruits packed with flavour. Start indoors for a long and rewarding season.

Aubergine

vegetable · Medium

A true heat-lover that needs a greenhouse or a warm, sheltered spot to ripen well in the UK. Start early indoors and glossy purple fruits follow from midsummer.

Bell Pepper

vegetable · Medium

Slow-growing and rewarding. Start early, keep them warm, and by late summer you'll have glossy peppers that cost a fraction of supermarket prices. Far sweeter picked fresh and fully ripe.

Brussels Sprouts

vegetable · Medium

A long-season crop for patient growers. Sow in spring and the reward is a stem of sprouts through the coldest months, sweeter after the first frost.

Cauliflower

vegetable · Medium

Demanding but deeply satisfying. Cauliflower needs consistent moisture, good soil and careful timing: get those right and a home-grown head is far superior to anything bought in a shop.

Cherry

fruit · Medium

The slowest of the common UK tree fruits to reward you, and the one birds want most, but a netted, well-chosen dwarf cherry is a genuine centrepiece crop.

Chilli

vegetable · Medium

Heat-loving and endlessly rewarding. Start early indoors and they'll fruit abundantly from midsummer right through to first frost.

Lemon

fruit · Medium

Not a standard UK outdoor fruit tree: a lemon here lives in a pot, spends summer outside and winter under cover, and rewards that seasonal back-and-forth with fruit most UK gardens couldn't otherwise grow.

Long Sweet Pepper

vegetable · Medium

Slender, pointed sweet peppers with thin walls and notably sweeter flesh than blocky bell types. Varieties like Ramiro and Corno di Toro are more prolific and easier to ripen in the UK climate: a great choice for any greenhouse or sunny sheltered spot.

Peach

fruit · Medium

Genuinely marginal in the UK climate, and genuinely achievable anyway: a peach against a warm, sheltered wall with a bit of leaf-curl protection crops reliably more often than its reputation suggests.

Pear

fruit · Medium

Slower and slightly fussier than an apple, but a well-placed pear against a warm wall in a UK garden is a genuinely reliable cropper once established.

Celeriac

vegetable · Medium–Hard

A demanding but distinctive root, closer in flavour to celery than it looks. Sow early with real patience and it rewards you with knobbly roots that store right through winter.

Ginger

vegetable · Medium–Hard

A genuine but niche UK project: ginger needs sustained warmth above 15°C for its whole eight to ten month growing season, so it only works in a heated greenhouse, conservatory, or a committed sunny windowsill, never outdoors. Plant a fresh rhizome piece in spring and dig your own knobbly, intensely flavoured ginger by late autumn.

Scotch Bonnet

vegetable · Medium–Hard

The patience test among peppers. Sow in January under real heat, wait a slow month for germination, and by late summer you'll have some of the hottest, most fragrant fruit you can grow.