Reading the plot before you plant anything

Cottage gardens are rarely blank canvases. There is usually a wall, a hedge, a shed casting a long shadow, and soil that has been worked — or neglected — for decades. Before you order a single seed packet, spend a fortnight noticing where the sun actually falls. Most vegetables need at least six hours of direct light in summer, and in a small plot the difference between the sunny side of a path and the shaded one is enormous.

Shelter matters just as much. A south-facing wall or a thick hedge gives warmth and wind protection, which can push your season forward by two or three weeks. But walls also cast a rain shadow, so the soil within half a metre of one is often bone dry. Dig a spade-depth hole and fill it with water. If it drains within the hour you have free-draining ground; if it sits there overnight, you have clay, and raised beds are about to become your best friend.

Raised beds that earn their keep

In a compact patch, raised beds do three jobs at once: they give you control over soil quality, they warm up earlier in spring, and they stop you treading on the ground you are trying to grow in. Keep them no wider than 1.2 metres so you can reach the middle from either side without stepping in, and make them 2.4 metres long if the space allows — it is a sensible balance between growing room and the timber needed to build them.

• Depth: 25–30cm is plenty for salad, beans, onions and most roots. Carrots and parsnips want a full 30cm of stone-free soil, so give them the deepest bed.
• Timber: untreated larch, oak or scaffold boards last well. Avoid old railway sleepers, which can leach creosote into the soil.
• Paths: allow 45cm between beds, or 60cm if you will be pushing a wheelbarrow. Bark, gravel or paving all work; bare soil will simply grow weeds.
• Filling: do not buy the whole lot as bagged compost. Use garden soil and well-rotted manure in the bottom third, then a blend of loam-based compost and more rotted manure on top. Fresh manure will scorch young roots, so make sure it is properly darkened and crumbly first.

Going upwards with beans and peas

Vertical crops are the single best use of a small plot because they occupy almost no ground area. Climbing French beans such as 'Cobra' or 'Blue Lake', runner beans like 'Scarlet Emperor', and tall peas all crop heavily from a wigwam of 2.4-metre canes. Tie the canes firmly at the top and push them 20cm into the soil so they do not shift in a gust.

Against a wall, a simple horizontal pole fixed between two uprights, with strings dropping to a lower bar, makes an excellent frame and is far easier to pick from than a wigwam. Sow beans from mid-May once the soil has warmed, two seeds per station at 5cm deep, thinning to the strongest. French beans sulk and drop their flowers in cold weather, so a fortnight's patience in spring pays for itself.

Pinch out the growing tips of runner beans once they reach the top of their supports to encourage side shoots, and water steadily once flowering begins. Dry roots mean dropped flowers and no crop. Meanwhile, the shade beneath a wigwam is perfect for a row of lettuce, which resents the midsummer heat.

Cut-and-come-again leaves: the small-space champion

If you grow nothing else, grow leaves. A one-metre square block of cut-and-come-again salad will keep two people in fresh pickings for months, and it costs pennies. Sow thinly in shallow drills about 1cm deep, or scatter over the surface and cover with a fine layer of compost.

• Reliable choices: 'Salad Bowl', 'Lollo Rossa', mizuna, rocket, 'Red Russian' kale, spinach 'Medania' and mustard 'Red Giant'.
• Harvesting: once leaves reach 8–10cm, cut them 2–3cm above the base with scissors. Most will regrow three or four times before quality drops.
• Succession: sow a small pinch every fortnight from March to August rather than one long row. This avoids the glut-then-famine cycle that puts people off growing salad.
• Protection: fleece or fine mesh keeps pigeons off and deters flea beetle, which riddles rocket with holes in dry weather. Water in the mornings, as damp foliage overnight invites mildew.

Filling the gaps with pots and permanent crops

Every cottage patch has awkward corners — a strip of paving, a north-facing step, the space beside the water butt. These are ideal for containers. A few dwarf French beans, a bush tomato in a 30cm pot, and a generous trough of herbs will crop hard without touching your bed space. Mint must always go in its own pot, or it will colonise the entire garden within two seasons.

It is also worth planting a few things that stay put and repay you year after year: rhubarb in a corner that gets a winter chill, sorrel and chives for early leaves, and a clump of parsley that will self-seed once established. These permanent residents mean you are never starting from nothing in spring.

Keeping the patch productive all year

Water deeply twice a week rather than little and often; shallow watering encourages weak roots. After a good soak, mulch with compost or grass clippings to lock the moisture in. Feed leafy crops with a nitrogen-rich liquid, and tomatoes and beans with a potash feed once flowering starts. A bucket of comfrey or nettle steeped in water for a fortnight makes a perfectly good free alternative, though it smells memorable.

Come autumn, do not let the beds stand empty. Sow winter lettuce such as 'Winter Density', lamb's lettuce, land cress and winter purslane under a cloche for picking through the coldest months, and plant garlic and broad beans 'Aquadulce Claudia' in October for an early start next year. Finally, spread a layer of compost over any bare soil, and let the worms do the digging for you.