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garden is tiny and my soil shallow, so I'm growing dwarf French beans and spinach in pots.As well as being small, with shallow soil, my garden is shady, but it gets two hours of strong sun in the afternoon, which I hope will be enough for French beans

to grow fruit and veg. We have runner, French and broad beans, spinach, chard, courgettes and some wonderful raspberries originally grown by my granny.The runner, French and broad beans were heavily infested with blackfly when I visited two weeks ago. But

platter of sandwiches. We both agreed that we felt a craving for greenery at this time of year.It might be too cold to grow your own salad leaves in the garden right now, but I'm tucking into lettuce, baby spinach, rocket leaves and a whole lot more

like rocket, watercress, and a range of warming mustard leaves. Baby spinach leaves provide more texture and flavour than lettuce too.Growing young salad leaves doesn't take much space and they're quick, only taking about a month from sowing to your

. Among my favourites are mizuna, pak choi, beetroot, spinach, coriander, and a host of others. I've even been enjoying some rat-tail radish, eating the small seed pods that taste exactly like, well, radish.Fitting fruit into a small garden is always

of salad leaves possible; lettuce, spinach, pak choi, mizuna, beetroot, watercress, parsley and chives, as well as tomatoes, beans, courgettes and new potatoes. Although I've tried growing them, I haven't had much success with either sweet potatoes or soya

rightly - and while not unpleasant, they were certainly an acquired taste.Dandelions grow bigger, with longer leaves, in wild areas than they do in lawns, where mowing keeps them flat and close to soil level. Apparently, the French often eat them as a

ground without forking too badly. Also, straight into the ground go beetroot, spinach and spring onions.To look at my veg garden you'd think I have a rebellious streak. I spent most of last winter digging up my straight 4’x10’ raised beds, in favour