Deciding what to grow is one of the best things about vegetable growing, but it's important to choose carefully and not get too carried away. Choose vegetables you really like, and look out for interesting varieties that you can harvest progressively. This will ensure that you have a ready supply of delicious vegetables throughout the growing season.

Vegetables can be ordered into four main groups, so choose the vegetables you like from each of these groups.

Group one
Potatoes, beetroot, carrots, chicory, artichokes, parsnips and salsify

Group two
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, swede and turnips

Group three
Peas, all types of beans

Group four
All other vegetables and salad crops

Plot rotation

Once you've made your selection, divide up your plot into four beds. Grow vegetables in four separate beds, grouped according to our guide. The reason for this 'grouping' is that you should not a grow the same vegetable in the same place year after year. Continuous cropping of the same plant can exhaust the soil of nutrients and pests and diseases can build up.

The answer to this potential problem is consistent plot rotation: in your second year of vegetable growing, your vegetables will 'move up' one bed. Your group two vegetables will be planted where the group one vegetables previously were, group three moves to the group two bed and so on. This allows the soil to recover, and the rotation can even be beneficial to future vegetables: for example, the nitrogen that peas and beans naturally deposit in the soil is perfect for encouraging growth in cauliflowers and cabbages.
Top tips

When you're laying out your vegetable plot, bear in mind these starter tips:

* Leave sufficient space between the beds to allow easy access to the plants. A path the width of a wheelbarrow is ideal.
* If your soil is poor or doesn't drain well, consider building raised beds. By creating a retaining wall from bricks or old railway sleepers, you can add a thick layer of organic material that will improve the soil. In addition, raised beds are easier to tend and don't need digging over in the autumn.
* If you've only got a small space, choose early or dwarf vegetable cultivars as they require less space and can be planted closer together.

I have grown successfully tomatoes (cherry, beefsteak, and low acid yellow), zucchini, and cucumbers. I failed with sweet potatoes, carrots, and white root (white carrots).

The low-acid tomatoes is a funny one - my daughter use to woddle (being 3 years at that time) out to the garden, and eat the cherry tomatoes off the wine. Unfortunatelly, her rear didn't take too kindly to so much acidic food. I planted these low-acid yellow tomatoes, and they made an awesome almost candy-sweet spaghetti sauce - and of course avoided the "rear-problems" with my baby. It required nothing special to grow the low-acid compared to the regular ones.

The dirt in my previous garden was... clay, and never had the chance to finish fixing it, before my move. I think that is why the potatoes and carrots didn't grow. Although none were big enough to be worthwhile to eat, they did make some seriously interesting twisted creatures...

seeing how much you have posted in the folder it looks like you are the unoffical vegitable exert

Dex, how hard are tomatoes to grow? Do you have some tips for us?