8 early vegetables

Radishes

Harvesting your first radishes is one of the first joys of the gardening season! With their fleshy, crunchy pink-and-white faces and their slightly peppery flavour, they symbolise the first harvests in the vegetable patch! For forcing, sow radishes from February until late March, broadcast on a hotbed under a cold frame or tunnel. Choose varieties that grow quickly and are well suited to growing under cover, such as ’18-day radish’, the Kiva radish, the earliest of all, ‘Fluo F1’ for half-long types and ‘Gaudry 2’ for round ones.

⇒ Radish: sow, to grow, harvest

Carrots

Crunchy, colourful and very fragrant, early carrots are among most popular early vegetables. You can sow the first carrots as early as late January (under cover heated to 15°C) and in February/March under tunnel or cold frame. Soil must be sufficiently dry. Prefer early varieties, short Grelot types such as ‘Marché de Paris’ which tolerate heavy, shallow soils, or half-long types such as the ‘Carotte de Luc‘, the carrot ‘Adelaïde F1 Hybrid’ or the Carrot ‘Amsterdam‘, with rapid growth, truly intended for very early cultivation. These early varieties are harvested 3 months after sowing, in May and June.

Carrot ‘Marché de Paris’ and Carrot ‘Amsterdam’

⇒ Carrot: sowing, to grow, harvest in vegetable garden

Peas

Sweet, tender and melt-in-the-mouth, in vegetable patch it’s one of first vegetables to sow in year, from February under a well-sited cold frame or a mini polytunnel. Choose smooth-seeded peas such as ‘Très hâtif d’Annonay’, the ‘Petit Provençal’, ‘Douce Provence’ or Pois ‘Plein le Panier’. These smooth pea varieties are more tolerant of spring frosts, being hardier and less prone to dampness than wrinkled-seeded peas. These very early or early varieties can be sown very early under a Nantes tunnel, for example in autumn around October–November, for a harvest from April. You can also simply protect sowings with a cloche or fleece to create a favourable microclimate for homogeneous germination.

On the right, dwarf pea ‘Douce Provence’

⇒ Peas and petit pois: sow, grow, harvest in vegetable garden

Land cress

Garden cress is an early land cress variety with rapid growth that can be sown outdoors from February without protection. It germinates very quickly, usually in 3-4 days for a harvest about 4 weeks after sowing. It simply needs moist soil and/or regular watering, a precaution that will prevent it from going to seed. It has very finely divided leaves with a slightly peppery taste and a fresh springlike flavour.

Lettuces

Tender, crisp and so refreshing, lettuces and other salads are probably the easiest vegetables to grow under cover during winter. Some varieties are particularly suitable for early sowing. Sowing can begin as early as mid-January on hotbeds or in February–March under cold frames or mini-tunnels. You can start harvesting your first salads 4 to 6 weeks later. Consider cut-and-come-again lettuces such as ‘Salad Bowl’ which can be sown and harvested all year round, to certain heading lettuces such as Lettuce ‘Appia’, ‘Reine de Mai’, two excellent varieties, early and hardy, and Lettuce Gotte ‘Jaune d’Or’, one of the earliest, ideal for first sowings under cover. Batavia lettuce ‘Reine des Glaces’ is also fairly cold-resistant.

‘Salad Bowl’ for cutting, and lettuce ‘Appia’

⇒ Succeeding in growing salads and How to succeed in sowing salads

Small onions

In the large family of onions, a distinction is made between early onions and storage onions, known as “de garde”. Early ones are harvested with their leaves still green, and eaten whole and fresh. They have a milder, juicy and crunchy flesh and are excellent in salads or to flavour a spring vegetable planter! White Onion ‘hâtif de Paris’, White Onion ‘printanier parisien’ and Onion ‘rouge de Florence’ are perfect for this type of growing as they are very hardy and early. Sow them from August to October indoors in trays or seed boxes for transplanting into open ground as early as November if winters are mild, or at end of winter around February. Onions will remain in ground throughout winter without protection. You can start harvesting them in spring from March onwards and throughout spring.

New onions

⇒ Onion: sowing, planting, cultivation, harvest

Potatoes

Early new potatoes, known as new potatoes with very thin skin and flavourful flesh, are harvested before ripeness, about 70 days after planting, around May–June. For an early crop, plant from February–March under cover (Nantes tunnel). They are then harvested while their skin is still thin, barely formed. Some early potato varieties can be harvested as new potatoes, before ripeness, such as ‘Belle de Fontenay’ and ‘Amandine’, which are elongated varieties with firm flesh and excellent flavour. Potato ‘Sirtema’, rounder, can also be harvested as new potatoes.

Potato ‘Belle de Fontenay’, and Potato ‘Amandine’

⇒ Cultivation, harvest and storage of potatoes

Turnips

To harvest early turnips, choose varieties known as ‘for forcing’ that grow quickly. Spring turnips can be sown from February until the end of March in forced culture under cover in heated beds for a harvest two months later. These spring turnips have a finer flavour, firm and sweet flesh, such as Turnip ‘Milan for forcing with pink collar’, ‘Early Auvergne Rave’, ‘Snowball’, or Milan ‘Extra Early Red’.

Turnips ‘Snowball’, Milan turnips for forcing

⇒ Turnip: sowing, cultivation, maintenance