These are some of the most useful autumn vegetables, providing a hint of the exotic, just as the weather is cooling. They provide a great range of colors, textures, and flavors, and can bring real variety to your salads and cooking.

When to plant: Midsummer to early autumn.

At their best: Autumn.

Time to complete: 1 hour.

You will need: Seed, a line of string, trowel, watering can.

Sow seed

Komatsuna, bok choy (pak choi), mizuna, mibuna, and other Oriental greens are best sown in late summer, or they will quickly run to seed. They need a rich, fertile, moist soil. Sow in situ or in modules, thinning or planting to eventual spacings of around 6 in (15 cm).

Picking the crop

Pick the leaves when young as a cut-and-come-again crop for salads and stir fries, or leave them to mature fully and harvest the entire plant. If you cut the plant 1 in (2.5 cm) above the ground, it will produce a second crop of leaves.