The best time to start growing a vegetable garden is when you are full of enthusiasm and curiosity about the new activity you are about to undertake. Clearly, some months of the year are not suitable for certain tasks that require specific temperatures and levels of solar radiation, but every month is a good time to plan your garden — in fact, the winter months are the best of all. Planning a vegetable garden means taking time, space and taste into account.

Time for the garden

A vegetable garden demands time, even if it is on a balcony. Start with a small plot (no more than 50 square metres) or a few pots, and let an entire summer of work go by before you think about expanding your growing area.

The soil and plants require ongoing care throughout the year, so plan to set aside at least half an hour every day — in the height of summer, even an hour.

Some tasks, such as watering or harvesting, are better done in the early morning (if you want to make stuffed courgette flowers and you pick them in the afternoon, all the petals will be open and it will be harder to close the flower without breaking it), others in the evening, but what matters most is consistency.

The turning of the seasons is fundamental to the growth of vegetable plants suited to our latitudes. List the varieties you intend to grow and then consult a sowing-calendar table.

Space for the garden

A vegetable garden ideally calls for good sun exposure, humus-rich soil and easy access, but it is hard to find a growing space that fits like a glove. To console yourself, look at the car parks and roads in your city — even those in the shade are overrun with every kind of plant, kept in check only by municipal gardeners. Plants are strong and resilient (weeds especially), and all you need to do is give them a little encouragement and look after the ones that interest you most.

Organise your garden so as to leave plants enough room to grow (a courgette plant needs one square metre of soil, a radish 25 square centimetres); create easy pathways between plants so you do not risk treading on them; and dot the garden with herbs and flowers that attract insects — lured by colours and scents, some insects might decide they prefer a calendula to your beans.

The taste of the garden

The choice of vegetable plants must take sun exposure, soil type and available space into account: do not sow a courgette in a 20-centimetre pot or carrots in clay soil. The best way to avoid mistakes is simply to try, but if you are a perfectionist and do not want to allow yourself the luxury of learning by doing, consult a horticulture text (see the "further reading" section at the bottom of the page) to find out exactly what each plant needs in terms of timing and cycles — wheat should not be sown in spring, whereas tomatoes should, though first in a seedbed.

Calculate the space you have available and think through crop rotation before you start sowing.

Sow the herbs and vegetables you use most in the kitchen, but also try a few less familiar plants to broaden your horticultural and culinary horizons. For example, try growing coriander — it is a pungent aromatic herb used in many Eastern and Nordic recipes; if you discover you do not like it, it is a plant that attracts insects and protects other crops from attack, so it is worth growing regardless.

Be mindful of how plants consume the soil's nutrients. You need to alternate heavy feeders with moderate and light feeders, so as not to deplete the soil excessively.

Examples of heavy feeders include the many varieties of cabbage, cucumbers, potatoes, pumpkins and courgettes. Examples of moderate feeders include onions, garlic, carrots, lettuce, spinach, radishes, peppers and melons. Finally, examples of light feeders include all varieties of beans, aromatic herbs and peas.

An exception? Tomatoes — they should always be grown in the same spot.

In nature, monoculture does not exist. Plants grow better when they are alternated, and they even have preferences about their neighbours: they do not interfere with one another when their roots branch in different directions; they help each other when some attract insects or pests that are harmful to others; some shelter from excessive sun in the shade of their neighbours' leaves; others climb up the support provided by a neighbouring stem; and so on. The world of companion planting — that is, of the mutual aid that plants provide one another — is enormously varied. Here are a few examples.

Good neighbours include: lettuce – radishes – kohlrabi; carrots – onions; tomatoes – celery; beans – maize.

Conversely, bad neighbours are: lettuce – parsley; tomatoes – fennel; cabbages – onions; potatoes – tomatoes.

How to plan activities in the kitchen

With a small vegetable garden at your disposal, kitchen activities are also influenced in their seasonal practices. One small but substantial advantage is having fresh herbs and early-season produce on hand. Beyond the excellent and well-known pesto, home-grown seedlings reveal the delights of tender radish and spinach leaves eaten raw in salads, carrot tops in soup, slices of pumpkin (skin included) roasted in the oven with salt, oil and nutmeg, and autumn strawberries — which, if they come from the balcony, do not even need to be washed.