Veg patch for my kids

[staveleymum]

I don't do gardening but I do have the benefit of a decent sized garden and my DS 8 is keen to grow some vegetables. We are in the process of digging out the weeds and turning over the soil in a reasonable sized area (south facing with some shade) about 2m x 2m.

I'm after recommendations for veg to plant that is easy to look after and what fertilizers etc I need to dig through to get started.

Thanks

You can sow rocket and a cut- and- come- again lettuce like salad bowl straight into the ground. Ground preparation would be digging then if possible raking to get a tilth (fairly level soil with no big lumps), gouging a line about a cm deep, sow seeds, cover over then let grow. Will need watering if dry but no fertiliser.

Sugar snap peas are a good one for kids to grow. The instructions on the seed packet are usually easy to follow. They need support in the form of branchy twigs but no fertiliser.

You could buy courgette plants or ridge cucumbers to plant. They need about 50cm space per plant and probably a bit of fertiliser.

There are quite a lot of things that you could grow really, a lot of vegetables are grown from seed. Other things I'd say were easy to grow include spring onions, parsnips, parsley, coriander, broad beans, dwarf beans, chard (rainbow or bright lights chard is also pretty!), radishes, kale, beetroot. Potatoes too but they need a lot of space and are so cheap to buy it's maybe not worth it. Carrots are a bit susceptible to carrot fly and broccoli to white fly. Depends on what you like to eat!