Vegetables

Fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs straight from the garden: what could be more tempting? Whether you are an aspiring home chef or simply love fresh fare, eating food you’ve grown yourself is wonderfully rewarding, as well as being healthy – and inexpensive.

If you are new to grow-your-own, we suggest trying a few traditional favourites that are easy and almost sure to produce a good crop, such as French beans, courgettes, salad leaves. But why not also be adventurous? If you love chilli peppers, or aubergines, or alpine strawberries, take up the challenge to see what you can produce from a few inexpensive seeds or plants.

Harvesting vegetables from your garden is hugely satisfying, and you'll revolutionise your tastebuds: food picked just minutes before it's on your plate has a colour, flavour and crunchiness that have to be experienced to be believed.

We have everything in our Henley on Thames garden centre to turn your garden into a haven of productivity: here's a selection to get you started.

Seeds: most veg are grown from seeds, from tomatoes to carrots and lettuces. Take your pick from the huge range in our garden centre; we've also got ready-spaced seed tapes and delicious heritage vegetables for you to try.

Sets and seed potatoes: from early spring we stock seed potatoes, plus onions, shallots and garlic from sets – easy-to-handle baby bulbs to plant straight into the ground.

Plug plants: for the ultimate in convenience we also stock plug plants -baby veg plants ready to go straight into containers or out into the garden.

Perennial vegetables: great value for money, these include some real delicacies: in our garden centre you'll find asparagus crowns, able to crop for 20 years, and stately globe artichokes looking as good as they taste.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in Henley on Thamesfor more information and advice about growing vegetables.