Think of this week’s episode as your entire vegetable year in fast-forward – one compact walkthrough so you can hit play in January and feel confident right through to December.
Ben’s 2024 garden gave us the perfect roadmap, so this video (and this summary) pulls together all the best bits: what to do when, what to sow, and how to keep the harvests coming no matter your experience level.
How This “Year in the Veg Garden” Works
We start where every great garden starts: winter planning.
From there, we move month by month through 2024’s highlights in Ben’s plot Viola Peach Jump-up, showing you:
- What to sow
- What to plant out
- What to tidy, feed, or fix
- What you can harvest or preserve
If you’re a beginner, think of this as your cheat sheet.
If you’re trying something new this year (no-dig beds, succession sowing, winter crops), there’s a nudge for you in every season.
Winter: Dreaming, Planning, and Quiet Prep (Dec–Feb)
December – The Ideas Month
In this part of the episode, Ben is mostly indoors – notebook, seed catalogues, and a mug of something warm.
December focus:
- Look back at what worked and what flopped last year
- Decide your top “must-grow” veg (start small, 5–8 crops is plenty)
- Measure beds or containers and sketch a simple layout
- Note your first and last frost dates so the rest of your year makes sense
Beginners: this is where you avoid overwhelm. A simple drawing plus a short crop list beats a 20-page plan every time.
January – Seeds, Soil & Structure
The garden looks quiet, but Ben’s already getting ahead.
January focus:
- Order seeds (popular varieties sell out early)
- Clear beds of dead, diseased material
- Add a layer of compost or well-rotted manure over empty beds
- Check supports, raised beds, and fences for damage
- Clean, sharpen, and oil tools
If you’re short on space, this is when Ben shows how Viola Pink Jump-Up to plan vertical growing – peas up netting, cucumbers up trellis, beans up teepees – to triple your yield in the same footprint.
February – First Green Hints
This is the month where the excitement bubbles up – you finally get to sow something.
February focus (depending on your climate):
- Start chillies, peppers, aubergines, and tomatoes indoors
- Sow hardy herbs like parsley and chives inside or in a sheltered frame
- Prepare potato trenches or big tubs ready for early plantings
- Lay out paths and bed edges so everything is easy to access later
Ben’s 2024 highlight here: a simple windowsill seedling setup – bright window, cheap LED strip, and reflective backing – that gave him strong, stocky seedlings without a fancy greenhouse.
Spring: The Big Push (Mar–May)
March – Early Crops & Seedling Care
Spring proper starts. In Ben’s garden this is where things wake up fast.
March focus:
- Direct sow hardy veg like broad beans, peas, spinach, rocket, radishes, and spring onions (under fleece or cloche if cold)
- Pot on indoor seedlings into larger modules or small pots Viola Primrose Bicolor
- Start cabbages, kale, broccoli, and brussels sprouts inside
- Weed lightly and re-mulch where needed
For beginners, Ben demos a simple rule:
“If the soil sticks to your boots, it’s too wet to work.”
That one tip saves a lot of compacted, unhappy beds.
April – Planting Party
By April, Ben’s garden feels like a conveyor belt of green.
April focus:
- Continue sowing fast crops: lettuce, beetroot, carrots, chard
- Start courgettes, squash, cucumbers, and sweetcorn indoors
- Harden off (acclimatise) seedlings by taking them outside for a few hours each day
- Plant out early potatoes and onion sets
A key 2024 highlight: Ben shows how he tucks quick crops between slow crops – radishes and salad leaves between baby brassicas – so that space is never wasted.
May – Frost Watch & Main Planting
This is make-or-break month for many gardeners, and Ben leans hard Viola Purple on patience here.
May focus:
- After your last frost date, plant out tomatoes, courgettes, beans, cucumbers, and sweetcorn
- Keep fleece or cloches handy for surprise cold snaps
- Mulch around young plants to hold moisture and suppress weeds
- Start regular watering habits – deep and less often is better than a daily sprinkle
Trying something new? Ben’s 2024 experiment was a no-dig bed: cardboard over grass, compost on top, and then planting straight into it. Simple, fast, and wildly productive.
Summer: Harvests, Pests & Succession (Jun–Aug)
June – The Garden Hits Its Stride
Everything suddenly looks full, and this is where Ben’s “little and often” rule shines.
June focus:
- Keep sowing salads, beetroot, carrots, and dwarf beans for staggered harvests
- Feed hungry crops (tomatoes, squash, cucumbers) with a potassium-rich feed
- Tie in tomatoes and climbing beans as they grow
- Watch for pests – especially aphids, slugs, and caterpillars – and deal with them early
Ben likes to show the difference between a bed sown once and one succession-sown every few weeks: side-by-side, it’s easy to see why small, frequent sowings win.
July – Peak Harvest & Care
This is the “reward month” in the episode – baskets of goodness and armfuls of greens.
July focus:
- Harvest little and often to keep plants producing
- Keep watering consistent, especially containers and greenhouse crops
- Shade greenhouses or use ventilation tricks to avoid heat stress
- Take notes on which varieties are shining and which are sulking
For gardeners trying something new, Ben highlights interplanting: basil under tomatoes, lettuce between sweetcorn, marigolds around beans – all to use Viola Purple Picotee space better and support beneficial insects.
August – Keep It Going, Not Just Going Over
Many gardens fade in August; Ben’s 2024 plot did the opposite.
August focus:
- Sow late crops: kale, spinach, Asian greens, turnips, and late carrots for autumn
- Start thinking about overwintering garlic and onions (order in good time)
- Keep feeding long-season crops like pumpkins and tomatoes
- Remove sad, spent plants and replant with quick growers
The key lesson: don’t let beds sit empty. Every gap is a chance for another harvest or a soil-building cover crop.
Autumn: Wrap-Up, Storage & Winter Crops (Sep–Nov)
September – Second Spring
Early autumn can feel like a fresh start.
September focus:
- Harvest main crop potatoes, onions, and squash, and cure/store them properly
- Sow spinach, winter salads, and hardy Asian greens in beds or under cover
- Plant garlic and, in milder spots, overwintering onions
- Add compost or leaf mould to beds as they empty Viola Tiger Eye
Ben’s 2024 highlight: a bed of autumn carrots and beetroot that followed early peas. Same bed, two big harvests.
October – Protect & Preserve
Now the episode shifts into cosy mode: jars, labels, and steaming pots.
October focus:
- Finish harvesting tender crops before frost
- Freeze, pickle, or dry surplus produce
- Clear dead plants (but leave healthy stems for wildlife if you like)
- Mulch bare soil to protect it from rain and erosion
If you’re new to preserving, Ben shows ultra-simple wins: chopped peppers in the freezer, blanched greens, basic pickled cucumbers – nothing complicated, just less waste and more winter flavour.
November – Reset For The Next Cycle
We’re almost back where we started, and the garden is ready to rest.
November focus:
- Plant the last garlic and spring bulbs around veg beds for colour and pollinators
- Finish major mulching
- Tidy paths and edges so winter work is safe and easy
- Make a quick list: “Grow again / Grow less / Never again” while memories are fresh
In the episode, Ben walks through his 2024 successes and flops right here, so you see the honest reality: not everything works, even for experienced gardeners. And that’s okay Winter Is Still Gardening Season.
One Video, A Whole Growing Year
By the end of this week’s episode, you’ve effectively walked through Ben’s entire 2024 veg year – missteps, magic moments, and all.
You get:
- A season-by-season roadmap
- Month-by-month examples from a real garden
- Ideas for beginners and for gardeners ready to try something new
Most importantly, you come away knowing you don’t have to figure it out from scratch.
So whether you’re watching in January with a blank notebook, or in June with soil under your nails, this compact video (and this outline) is here to keep you one step ahead of the seasons – and a whole lot closer to your best vegetable garden ever. 🌱🥕🥦
