How to grow a lush winter-vegetable garden in a space no bigger than a margarine tub

If you want to grow veg during a big chill, it pays to think small. Even if you have a garden or a balcony, very few vegetables will survive a nipping frost. But there is a way to add nutritious greens to your plate every day of the year – with little more than a seed tray and some scissors.

Microgreens or microveg is the little league of grow-yourown. These immature vegetables and herbs are harvested and eaten at the seedling stage, before they grow into adult plants. And because they’re never meant to reach full size, they don’t need hours of sunlight or green-fingered diligence to grow well. In fact, they’re the ultimate in fast food – making it from plot to plate in as little as six to 21 days after sowing. And what they lack in size they make up for in flavour and nutrients. Snipped young and fresh (rather than transported from supplier to supermarket), they have higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals than their mature counterparts.

Getting started

‘They’re a low-cost, hassle-free way of growing nutritious crops in the darker winter months,’ says James Dix, who began growing microgreens in 2017, inside a large shed at the bottom of his garden, and now runs a successful company supplying these mini-marvels commercially. ‘Vegetable seeds have lovely nutrients locked inside them – but you can’t always eat the seeds. Microgreens allow you to get all those vitamins in a bite-sized plant and have your five a day in one single bowl.’