Firstly, before you launch into the ramblings below, I recommend you buy two books. Tender Volume 1 and Tender Volume 2 by Nigel Slater. Volume 1 is about veg and Volume 2 about fruit. These books made me fall in love with growing food.
Which type of fruit or veg should I grow?
I found that deciding the type was easy. I wanted to grow everything. However, I had to work to certain external constraints.
Space
I started with three 4ft x 6ft (1.2m x 1.8m) raised beds so I had a limited amount of space to grow in. I had so many different seedlings coming up that I just tried to squeeze everything in where I could - the courgettes went in the top flower bed by the path, with two tomato plants in with the daffodils and I had more growbags one year than all the growbags I'd seen in my lifetime put together. I admit I pay little attention to the row spacings and seedling spacings on seed packets and in books, I think some of my veg in particular don't grow as big as they could because I overcrowd the beds but I've got better.
Basically I think of the full grown plant and work from there. Look them up on Google if you're not sure, I did as I really had no idea what a tomatillo plant looked like! Obviously I can't put two cabbage plants 5cm apart as they'll never be able to grow to full size but I plant my chard a bit closer than it says as then I can fit an extra one in and as they're leafy they just intertwine a bit. I try not to push it though, everything needs room to grow and don't forget they need plenty of space under the soil to grow healthy roots.
Plus I love growing fruit and veg amongst the flowers and shrubs. I grow sweet peas with my beans, peas and tomatilloes, marigolds with my tomatoes (classic combi anyway, keeps away the whitefly), cosmos with the squash and calendula with the courgettes.
Location and Inclination
I live in the north so I have to work harder with those types that require a bit of heat. I can manage a good crop of tomatoes outside but aubergines, chillies, bell peppers, cucumbers etc need to be kept in a greenhouse. That means watering more often and checking more often. If you live in London, I bet you could grow aubergines outside without much trouble.
If you don't want high-maintenance crops then choose ones that are suited to be outside in your climate.
For example, I grow parsnips every year, in a tub, just enough for Christmas dinner. I sow them in March and then harvest them at Christmas - I barely touch them in between, just to weed them a bit and water them if it's a dry summer. Pretty much the same with potatoes and brussel spouts. I won't grow cabbages or any brassicas (except three sprout plants) because the pigeons always pull them up and they take practically the whole year to grow but I spend hours and hours over the summer checking, watering and feeding my aubergines in their little plastic greenhouse.
Be realistic with what you're going to do and tailor the types of fruit and veg accordingly.
What varieties of fruit or veg should I grow?
There are so many different varieties of fruit and veg available that I found recommendations, either from a book, online or an actual human person, were a great way helping me to decide which varieties I wanted to grow myself.
My main thing is I like to grow things I can't buy in the shops. I grow every colour of tomato I can find, sunny yellow carrots, beautiful white radishes and vibrant purple potatoes. I love unusual or heritage varieties.
As I mention varieties I'm growing throughout the blog, I thought I might as well jsut copy them here so we have them all in one place. As I go along, I'll just keep adding and any recommendations I get from others I'll pop up here too.
So here we go, varieties of fruit and veg to try:
Potatoes
Blue Kestrel - I tend to grow the Kestrel variety every year as it's a fantastic all-rounder, so it can be fried, baked, roasted, mashed and boiled. It has a superb taste and good disease resistance, plus it doesn't seem to suffer to badly as cuisine for slugs. The Blue Kestrel is a relation with all these admirable attributes but with a lovely purple-ish tinge, plus it's a bit more floury which appeals for roasting purposes.
Salad Blue - I grew this for the first time last year, following which I was totally in love. It's a gorgeous deep purple colour all the way through when harvested, when cooked it turns a delicate blue. It's a waxy, or salad, potato and looks brilliant when added to the said potato salad.
Charlotte - the well-known waxy (salad) potato but a million times tastier than the ones in the shops.
Heather - a scrummy lilac-skinned variety, will definitely grow again but my last crop was a bit small.
Red King Edward - actually a Main Crop but I grew it as a Second Early, beautiful red-skin with creamy white flesh.
