Seven steps to a potager plot

5. Placing your plants
Plant densely at first and then thin clusters out as you eat. For example, place onion sets one inch apart and pick every other one to use as green onions, allowing space for the rest to mature into cooking onions.

Vegetables that stay in place for the whole season (like chard, leeks, parsnips and brussels sprouts) can be interspersed with those that crop quickly and need to be replanted (such as spinach, radish and lettuce).

My potager can be a riot of colour with scarlet chard, purple cabbage, purple beans, tomatoes in every hue and edible flowers like nasturtium, calendula and citrus marigolds. I love to graze as I walk through my potager—a tomato warm from the sun, a handful of strawberries—much of the produce never reaches the kitchen.