May

A vast improvement on the older varieties. Calabrese Ironman F1 possesses the usual advantages of a hybrid - vigorous habit with excellent uniformity and high yields of larger than normal heads. Producing excellent quality, uniform dense heads and a very good dome shape. Harvest late June to November.

Flourishing famously in Mediterranean and Chinese cultures, elsewhere Raab is still a bit of a curiosity. Easy and fast growing, it can be useful as it comes ready when ordinary broccoli isn't available, but this isn't just a replacement for broccoli, it is a great vegetable in its own right.

Kailan is a fantastic vegetable chimera - the florets of broccoli, the stems of asparagus, and leaves like tender collard greens. 'Kichi' is a uniform variety with large blue green waxy leaves and excellent stem and bud eating quality. It has a mild flavour and, best of all can be harvested in only eight weeks.

This lovely, old fashioned Broccoli variety is a very disease resistant, very hardy and very prolific producer of large dark green heads. Italian Green Sprouting Broccoli is very easy to grow and will produce a number of good-size side shoots once the initial head is harvested.

Extra-Early Purple Sprouting 'Rudolph' is bred to perform well in the September to February period but is at its best from November to February. With medium to large, deep purple, succulent spears that have outstanding flavour, team with Cardinal for a longer harvest period.

Beetroot 'Boldor' is a superb, improved golden beetroot that offers superior seedling emergence, strong vigour and excellent uniformity. Attractive copper skinned, globe shaped roots with beautiful, sweet, juicy yellow flesh. Ideal for salads or for juicing. Sow March to July for harvesting June to December.

Chioggia or Barabietola di Chioggia is a globe-shaped heirloom Italian variety. With a rosy orange-pink outer skin and a distinctive dartboard pattern when cut, it is sometimes known as Bull’s Eye Beet or Candy Stripe Beet. Bands of white flesh alternate with bands of pink or rosy red.

“The old Egyptian turnip or flat-rooted beetroot has the best flavour but is scarce.” Bob Flowerdew. Beetroot 'Flat of Egypt’ is a very old heritage variety that produces smooth skinned roots, often heart-shaped, with a deep red, tender and flavoursome flesh.

Detroit 2 Crimson Globe or Rote Ruben is a popular improved Detroit globe beetroot. It is a classic, main-crop beetroot which produces excellent quality, smooth skinned beets with strong skin and ox-blood flesh colour. It is recommended as a good cultivar to use for succession sowings.

Beetroot 'Boston' is an excellent improved Boltardy selection. The round roots have a smooth skin and good internal colour and texture. Slow bolting, it is ideal for early sowings, this maincrop variety can be sown from early March right through to late August.

Beetroot Bikores produces smooth-skinned red roots with dark-red flesh, it is a fairly sweet beetroot with a full and rounded flavour and has consistently been one of the highest ranking beetroot in taste tests. It is resistant to bolting and suitable for early sowing under cloches and for maincrop use.

Runner beans are all attractive enough for flower gardens or patios, but the 'Sunset Runner Bean' is in a class by itself. The luminous peach to shell-pink blossoms are absolutely beautiful and will look equally at home in your vegetable plot or your flower borders. The pods are fleshy, straight, smooth, and almost stringless when young.

When I was young and idle, I’d dream of a self-refilling pint of cider. Now I’m older I dream of the slightly more realistic horticultural equivalent: beans and plenty of them. Bred for high yields and reliability, ‘Streamline’ gives heavy yields of fantastic tasty pods giving you effortless food for weeks.

An improved selection of this well known and much loved variety, Runner Bean 'Painted Lady' is well know, as much for its astonishing bicolour, coral red and creamy white blooms as for the superior beans produced. The beans are deliciously thick and meaty with a sweet balanced flavour.

Runner Bean ‘Mergoles' produces decorative clear white blooms and white beans. This high quality variety sets well in almost all conditions and produces abundant yields of delicious, stringless, fleshy pods, which can be eaten fresh or frozen, or left on the plants to mature and harvest the mature creamy white seeds.