Growing your own Sophie Grigson You don't need luridly green fingers, nor even a garden, to grow some of your own kitchen ingredients. Expert cookery writer and amateur vegetable grower, Sophie Grigson, picks her top edible plants for plentiful produce.

In this article

Gourmet gardening for beginners What to grow Sorrel Rocket

Mesclun Kohlrabi Swiss chard and spinach

Jerusalem artichokes Tomatoes Courgettes

You will notice the brilliant improvement in flavour and a rocketing satisfaction rate when you harvest and eat the produce

Self-sufficient you won't be, unless you put in buckets of time and effort, but you will notice the brilliant improvement in flavour and a rocketing satisfaction rate when you harvest and eat the produce that you've planted, semi-nurtured and often neglected, all by yourself. Clever you.

It's surprising how much you can grow in a handkerchief-sized patch of land. Even if you don't have a garden you can get away with a few sturdy containers (anything from an old bucket to a fancy designer flower pot) or even a simple window box.

Not all vegetables respond well to the benign neglect regimen that I've honed over the years, but here are a trug-full of my top successes, in no particular order:

The sharp lemony flavour is brilliant in soup, with fish and with eggs in particular, but it needs to be used in big handfuls. Plant, watch it grow and grow, and snap off flowering stems as they thrust up. If you only have room for one type of sorrel, choose the large-leafed variety. Buckler leaf sorrel has tiny, shield-shaped leaves, good in a mixed green salad or as a garnish. One plant should last you a lifetime, or at least until you move house.

• Watch Sophie cook with sorrel in her video recipe for Salmon with green butter. (A non-video version is available.)
• Try her recipe for Avocado, cucumber and sorrel soup.

Homegrown rocket has a divinely peppery taste. Grow from seed and choose a variety that promises not to bolt. Sow in successive short rows or in shallow plastic planting trays, once a week, for 4-6 weeks, so that you can harvest it over the maximum period of time. Leaves are often speckled with small holes, but these taste just as good as unblemished leaves, so don't despair. Serve a simple rocket salad drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, flecked with generous shavings of parmesan. It also makes a wonderul, peppery pesto.

• Try Gennaro Contaldo's recipe for Sea bass with rocket pesto - you can stir the pesto sauce through pasta, as you would with basil pesto.

If planting your seeds in containers, make sure there are holes in the bottom for drainage. Cover the holes with pieces of broken pottery or pebbles so that water (rather than soil) filters through. Though visually unappealing, growbags are brilliant, coming complete with every nutrient a burgeoning plantlet fantasises about.

Many seed companies now sell packs of mixed lettuce seeds ('mesclun' is the smart southern French name for them) which are perfect for the dilettante gardener. Sow successively as with rocket, water regularly, and then harvest when the leaves are small and plentiful. This neatly gets round the need to thin plants out, which is simultaneously heart-wrenching and tedious. Use as you would any salad leaves but, as they taste so much better than the ones you'd buy, keep it simple - maybe just mix them with a classic French vinaigrette and serve as a summer starter or side dish.

The name literally translates as 'cabbage turnip', but this belies their excellent juicy crispness and light flavour. Straight from the garden, barely larger than a ping pong ball, they are sensational thinly sliced into a summer salad, or stir-fried for a few minutes with ginger and garlic, or steamed whole. Sow seeds successively over a period of four or five weeks, as with rocket. Once the seedlings are jostling for space, thin them out leaving gaps of 5-10 centimetres (2-4 inches) between them. Sturdier seedlings can be replanted in a second row close by. This is a two-in-one vegetable - the leaves taste almost as good as the kohlrabi itself. Cook the leaves as you would spinach - you won't get those in a supermarket.

• Try Sophie's recipe for Smothered leeks and kohlrabi.

You could just stick with the classic white-ribbed chard, which has the most amazing taste when it comes straight from the garden to the pan and onto your plate, or you could opt for the equally amazing rainbow-coloured chard with ribs of red, yellow, pink and orange. It looks pretty sensational in the garden or a container, so grow it where everyone can admire it. This is another two-in-one vegetable - the dark green leaves have a deep, earthy taste, while the ribs are crisp, sweet and juicy. Plant seeds in rows and remember to thin them out before they grow too big, allowing room for ribs to broaden.You can grow spinach in the same way.

• Try Sophie's recipe for Gratin of chard and new potatoes
• Gnocchi di spinaci e ricotta
• Spinach with walnuts and crème fraîche
• Braised leeks with Swiss chard
• Sautéed chard with garlic

These little edible, sweetly succulent tubers are wonderful boiled, roasted or stir-fried. Just scrub them clean - there's no need to peel them. Uproot the plants in the early autumn and you should discover a treasure hoard of them. Ironically, not only do delicious Jerusalem artichokes induce wind in the consumer, but their tall stems and foliage work wonders as a wind-break for more tender plants in the garden. This means that they are far too tall for a window box, but fine in a sturdy container or small patch of ground. Plant in a row, water occasionally and leave to grow to skyscraper height.

• Try Sophie's recipe for Jerusalem artichoke broth.
• Try Sophie's recipe for Chicken and Jerusalem artichoke pie.

Cherry tomatoes grow like Topsy, and even ordinary tomatoes do pretty well in containers and growbags. You'll need at least two cherry tomato plants or three or more with larger tomatoes, for a decent crop. One of the great delights of growing tomatoes is the marvellous scent of their leaves. Important points for the non-gardener to remember are that you'll need to tie the thrusting plant loosely to a stake to keep it upright, and that you need to pinch out tiddly side shoots between leaf and stem so that all the energy is shunted into growing the fruit. Sunshine's important but be aware that underwatering can lead to split skins.

• Watch Sophie demonstrate how to use a glut of tomatoes in her video recipe for Pasta with tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil. (A non-video version is available.)
• Or watch her video recipe for Omelette Tourangelle with roast tomato sauce. (A non-video version is available.)

Two or possibly three courgette plants are likely to be enough for most families. Nurture them as much as you can when they first go in the ground and don't allow the soil to dry out. Once the plants start to produce courgettes, very little can be done to stop the onslaught. Celebrate the first few tiny fingerlength courgettes then keep picking, picking, picking. The moment you turn your back, they'll swell into hefty marrows, and then they'll stop producing. Don't say I didn't warn you!

• Try Sophie's recipe for Manuela's aunt's torta verde.

More of Sophie's vegetable recipes to try

• Citrus radish confit from Vegetables
• Smoky parmesan-roasted kumara cubes from Vegetables
• Curly kale (or cavolo nero) with rosemary and chilli from Vegetables
• Broad bean, yoghurt and mint soup from Vegetables
• Sweet and sour stuffed aubergines from Vegetables
• Caramelised chicory from Vegetables
• Roast celeriac with marsala from Vegetables