PERENNIAL PLEASERS

Tired of replanting your veg patch or allotment every year? Benedict Vanheems helps you to discover the perennial vegetables that come back stronger each season, offering low-maintenance harvests and year-round charm, no matter what!

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Imagine planting your vegetables once then harvesting year after year with barely any effort. No constant digging, no obsessive seed-sowing, no complicated crop rotation charts stuck to the fridge — just delicious, homegrown food on repeat. Welcome to the wonderful world of perennial vegetables!

These easy-growing long-lifers deserve more attention and certainly more space in our gardens. Not only are they exceptionally productive and low maintenance, many help to fill that niggling 'hungry gap' in spring, when winter crops are finished but summer's plantings aren't quite ready. In fact, these perennial pleasers are so straightforward, giving so much in return for so little, it almost feels like cheating.

But with that aside, let's roll up our sleeves and get planting. There's a sensational smorgasbord of easy-growing, handsome-as-they-are-tasty plants to explore — each a marvel in its own right.

GLOBE ARTICHOKES: THE SILVERY SHOWOFFS!

If vegetables had a red-carpet moment, the globe artichoke would absolutely be strutting down it. This is a plant that refuses to blend into the background. It's bold, statuesque and, frankly, quite fabulous (dahling!)

With their silvery, serrated leaves and towering flower stems, artichokes are as ornamental as they are edible. They love a sunny, well-drained spot, and while they might start off modestly don't be fooled, as each plant needs a good metre or so of elbow room to stretch out and reach its full glory.

Plant young plug or pot-raised plants into a sunny spot in either the veg patch or flower border. Prepare the ground with a few buckets of compost per plant, then set into the ground as normal.