My annual veg

Veg trug with lettuces and carrots; obelisk waiting for cucumbers to climb up; potatoes in foreground

The main purpose of my gardening these days is to combine edible with visually attractive plants and I've chosen a no-dig, no chemicals approach which is healthier  for the garden and should mean less work in the long run. This  has meant concentrating on mainly perennial or self-seeding annual vegetables which won't need much, if any, feeding or watering and are mainly old varieties more akin to wild forms but usually very tasty.

This year, as I'm confined to my garden,  I thought I'd give some of  what I suppose you could call conventional vegetables a go. So I have filled up a clutch of pots on my patio where I can keep an eye on them and care for them easily. I counted up my crop the other day and was surprised how much I am managing to grow. I have three types of cut-and-come-again-lettuces in my mini veg trug, carrots, beetroot, mange touts, chard, one aubergine, three tomatoes, a cucumber, three potato varieties. (I also have some leeks, Cavolo Nero kale, broad beans and beetroot scattered about  in the garden.)

The patio is a concrete slab about  10ft x 23ft (3m x 7m)  so, as you can imagine, it is fairly crowded. The mini veg trug is really tiny and probably doesn't hold much more than a couple of pots but it's rather pretty and was my first venture into veg at home so I am fond of it and grow the lettuces round the sides and carrots in the deeper section in the middle. The pots are mostly terra cotta but I'll use anything to hand, including plastic if necessary.  Half of my plants were grown from seed and the others bought as plug plants from organic nurseries such as D T Brown Seeds (www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk) and Rocket Gardens (www.rocketgardens.co.uk).

Pellets with beetroot,  mange touts, lettuces and leeks

I use Jiffy pellets which expand when watered to take one or two seeds each. I stand them in old plastic fruit punnets so they can be watered and labelled in small batches.  I have no greenhouse or cold frame or window sill that gets the sun, so they have to start life out of doors and I am always far too impatient and want to sow seeds long before the weather is warm enough but in this part of London, the best time to start sowing most things is probably not until the beginning of May. I may cover them with plastic cloches as protection against cold nights. I bought several cloches in various sizes about 15 years ago and they have been worth their weight in gold - even if they get  bit bashed up by wind or foxes they are still usable and they've been invaluable.

A rather battered but serviceable plastic cloche covering some kale plants

I don't plant the tiny veg out into their final pots until they've made a satisfactory root ball. The larger plants (tomatoes, aubergines etc) have a pot each, smaller things like lettuces, carrots etc. can go two or three to a pot. I water them every evening once the compost has cooled a bit so the water won't evaporate and this year I've buried a cut-off water bottle, top down in with each pot so the water goes straight to the roots. I feed them once a fortnight with nettle tea made from a patch of nettles growing under a shrub. So far my produce is healthy and I've started eating the lettuces and radishes. Fingers crossed all the rest will grow up to be delicious adults.

Tomato plant with cut-off bottle for watering

This is turning out to be the perfect year for finding out how to manage a vegetable crop since it's impossible to go away and leave them.  Here are some of the things I've discovered so far:

• If you run out of compost you can earth up potatoes with mulch, such as straw, home made compost, or piles of old leaves. 
• If you just buy seed potatoes, rather than a kit, you can plant them in large compost bags. 
• Upturned hanging baskets will stop cats from using anything they think is a bare patch of earth as a loo and scratching it all up into mounds, and your tiny seedling with it. 
• Beetroot and tough leafy things like kale don't mind a bit of shade.
• Tiny transparent yogurt pots and fruit punnets will help protect your baby plants from slugs when you first plant them in the garden. 
• Birds will raid your pots and fresh mulch in the garden for their nests. I use stiff plastic netting (not that floppy stuff) just laid over them as a disincentive.
• Never skimp on watering if your plants are getting dry. 

Earthed up potatoes: Charlotte in made-for-purpose bag and Desiree in compost bag