Direct Sow In Autumn

Recommended by the N.I.A.B, Turnip ‘Snowball’ is a very popular first-class, globe variety with solid flesh and a juicy, sweet, mild flavour. They are a fast crop, being ready in just five to eight weeks from sowing. With pure white flesh as its name suggests, Snowball is superb for both table and exhibition.

Purple Top Milan is a classic Italian heirloom variety and is still as popular as ever. Highly ornamental, it has smooth creamy-white flat roots with bright purple shoulders and pure white flesh. A strap-leaved variety, quick to mature and early cropping, it is an ideal 'catch crop' between slower growing vegetables.

Tatsoi or Rosette Pak Choi is among the most popular of oriental greens and one of the best vegetables to grow in a cool climate. The spoon-shaped, evenly spaced leaves form a plant worthy to be grown for its decorative value alone. Given enough room the plants will form beautiful wide rosettes of regular, concentric circles.

Sweet Cicely is an attractive plant that is a striking component of herb gardens and hedgerows. Growing to around 90cm, umbels of tiny white flowers appear from spring to early summer. Formerly a widely cultivated culinary herb, the fern-like leaves are deeply divided and smell of aniseed when crushed.

Salsify may be a chic new vegetable with the foodie crowd but it just happens to be an old-fashioned heritage root crop. This unprepossessing Mediterranean winter vegetable has a delicate taste, ever so slightly sweet, some say slightly reminiscent of oysters, so much so that it is also known as the 'oyster plant'.

Root Parsley Hamburg is an off-beat, dual purpose vegetable that deserves to be better known. The root can be left in the ground all winter and dug up as and when your Sunday roast requires and the luxury of having plenty of leaves to snip from the garden in winter can’t be overstated.

This trendy Wasabi Rocket actually has the punchy flavour of Wasabi - a Japanese vegetable much like horseradish. It can be picked from microleaf, babyleaf or a larger rocket sized leaf. Easy to grow and packs a full flavoured punch with the unusual flavour of wasabi. .

Rocket 'Sorrento' is a reliable main season variety with distinct thick leaf and strongly erect plant habit. A little slower to mature with good field holding ability for summer and autumn crops, the plants are more upright, and bolting is slower than with standard wild rocket. Use as a baby leaf in salad mixes, it will ‘cut and come again’ two to three times.

Relatively unknown to our shores, Rocket ‘Olive Leaf’ is an excellent selection of the traditional Italian olive leaf wild rocket. With a beautiful light green colour and smooth shape similar to an olive leaf, this perennial form has a distinctive aroma and flavour that is more subtle than the usual wild rockets.

GIOVE, the Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element are the satellites that test technology in orbit for the Galileo positioning system, while Rocket ‘Giove’ is a new wild rocket variety that has been bred for flavour. Bolt-resistant, hardy with a distinctive flavour, I am sure Galileo would have approved of this new variety.

Rocket ‘Dragons Tongue’ is a distinctive wild rocket variety with striking purple-red leaf veins which contrast beautifully with the dark green leaf. It is the essence of a lightly flavoured rocket – honeyed, grassy and only lightly peppery. It is something a bit little bit different for the salad bowl.

Rocket 'Pronto' is a very attractive and fast growing salad rocket. A clear improvement to regular varieties, the highly serrated leaves resemble the shape of wild rocket yet are mildly spicy with a nutty, light peppery flavour. Ideal as a bed for seafood and it also makes a wonderful salad on its own.

'Dentellata' is a classic salad rocket with a typical wild rocket indented leaf shape. With good texture and colour it has a mild flavour. Also known as arugula, it is popular in Italy and Southern France, where it has been grown and eaten for centuries.