mini veg

[raine]

Hi All, I know I asked this before but I think I got sidelined with all your good advice so I thought I'd try again! I want to grow baby veg and I wondered if anyone has any favourites?
Thanks Raine

[scarey55]

Ooh, good question Raine - there's only 2 of us and I want to grow only enough to eat at one meal ie cauli, cabbage etc.
As you might have guessed by this - I have no advice to offer but look forward to the answers.

[momol]

Hello Raine & Claire,

The mini veg I know are :
little gem(mini green cos lettuce),
mini cabbage ( The GreenWeb - SEED CATALOG ),
tom thumb ( mini green butterhead),
petite rouge ( mini red romaine),
mini Mirai sweet corn,
tiny Tim tomato,
Dwarf okra " little lucy" ( reaching to 60 cm only, burgendy colour,edible, a hybrid),
Dwarf basil,
Dwarf nasturtium.

The mini veg I have grown so far are:
dwarf pak soy,
mini balkon tomato (don't know it's name),
parmex carrot (ping pong ball size carrot),
Igloo mini cauli ( a hybrid, it can be let to grow bigger but mine failed this year).

Apart from those, there are several veggies you can grow in pots and treated like mini such as mache/ lambs lettuce, radish, all oriental leafs which grow as baby veg, many salad mix which is treated as cut and come again/ baby salad...

I can't really give a good advice really but hope it help and looking forward to hearing what others experience and advice...

Cheers,
Momol

[bramble]

Theres a very nice white turnip on the market called Snowball. I have grown it twice and its just the right size for two people with a lovely flavour. Have also grown Paramix carrot with great success in a container.

[Alison]

I grew Idol cauliflower a few years ago and they formed nice curds that were about the right size for two of us. Not grown them since buy may give them a try again next year.

[scarey55]

Excellent ideas, thanks peeps - now just got to get them to grow

[raine]

brilliant! I have just ordered igloo caluliflower and mini finger carrots but the link that you gave us, momol has got loads more. I'm not growing ONLY mini veg but I think I'm going to expand my plans a bit!
Please keep the advice coming. I'm particularly interested in any thing you have grown successfully yourself as I'm a bit of a marketers dream and believe all the hype on ALL the packets!
Thanks Raine

[Two_Sheds]

We found Minipop sweetcorn to be absolutely awful.
As for mini veg generally... I find beetroot grown closer together than normal produces ickle baby ones. Same would go for turnips, carrots.
Can't think of anything else, the Baileys Latte is just kicking in ...

[smallblueplanet]

I can also add a vote for cauli Idol as a mini veg. We grew it successfully when we lived in (colder) Derbyshire, good taste too.

[Cutecumber]

Don't let the seed merchants fool you into only buying varieties that they classify as mini-veg. These may well be able to produce small, but mature crops, but so can other types and they may be cheaper as they are not branded as special.

Some veg varieties are naturally smaller - take Tom Thumb, Mini Green and Little Gem lettuce varieties. They are widely available and easy to grow.

Beetroot - I haven't yet come across a (globe) beetroot variety that doesn't produce lovely small roots.

Carrots - all carrots, just like beetroot are edible at any stage in their growth, it just depends what you want. Those varieties which are intended to be eaten big, however, will produce a lot of top growth and bulk up more slowly. Just go for what they call "early" carrots, or the round ones.

Brassicas - as long as you stick to summer varieties (which grow quickly and are generally smaller in nature), slightly closer planting that suggested will produce a smaller head (most of the time ). I do this with cabbages, cauliflower and calabrese which I grow in containers. All varieties I have tried have headed up perfectly well. I would recommend Protovoy and Minicole cabbages, Idol & Candid Charm cauliflowers, Tiara and Sakura Calabrese.

I think my main advice would be not to go mad with really close spacing. You want mini-veg, not tiny distorted veg. I have learnt by experience!

[JennieAtkinson]

Alice and I shared a few "mini-veg" seed packets last year, but I think she had more luck than I did, particularly with cauliflower. I wouldn't grow mini sweetcorn again, bit of a waste of time when you only get 2/3 per plant and the plants are over 7 foot high!
My greatest mini success was the dwarf runner bean Hestia and I'm going to grow more this year. The plants themselves were extremely pretty in pots around the greenhouse and they yielded a sizeable harvest of really sweet tasting beans.

[PAULW]

Another vote for cauli Idol

[Hazel at the Hill]

If you grow the hestia runner beans, I'd put straw around the base of the plants to keep the beans 'clean' - the plants may only be about 18" tall, but the runner beans are full size.

I found that the beans reached the floor and gave the slugs something for their tea.

[rustylady]

Was really disappointed with sweetcorn Minipop. Plants grew well, better than my Swift did. Will only grow standard sweetcorn next year. As for special varieties, I think you will have just as much success with standard ones planted slightly closer together and harvested early.

[raine]

this is really useful, thanks very much. I too, wondered if the mini veg label was just hype but, like i say I'm a sucker when it comes to labelling. I feel much more confident now that I have some varieties to try. Sometimes I think that there is so much out there that I don't know where to start!