A trip to any decent garden centre will whet your appetite for the extraordinary range of vegetables available to the home grower. It may also bring on a bad case of 'options paralysis': there's just so much I could grow, but what shall I grow?

There is a golden rule that should govern your selection: don't grow anything that you are not genuinely enthusiastic about eating. That may seem obvious, but it is amazing how many vegetable growers end up with gluts of produce they don't really want. Cauliflowers spring to mind. On the other hand, if your tastes are as catholic as mine, this rule of thumb may not narrow the field down a great deal. So I apply a further, more rigorous principle: I tend to grow only vegetables that I believe will be significantly better, i. e. tastier, than the ones I can buy in the shops.

I am the first to admit that this is entirely a matter of personal prejudice. My prejudices dictate, for example, that I don't grow much in the way of onions and cabbages. And although I do grow some interesting salad leaves, I tend to steer clear of row upon row of 'regular' lettuces. My rationale for these omissions is as follows. I don't grow onions because I use them all the time, and if I tried to grow as many as I use I would have to turn over the whole garden to them. Besides, onions in the shops are extremely cheap and keep well for months on end: I see no great excitement in a really 'fresh' onion. I don't grow cabbages because they take up a lot of space, and I get excellent local varieties anyway, usually within a day or two of being picked. And I don't believe I can taste the difference between a cabbage picked two hours ago and one picked twenty-four hours ago (unlike peas, for example). I don't grow many lettuces because, again, what's available locally is excellent, and I prefer to devote the space to more unusual and distinctively flavoured leafy greens, such as rocket, landcress, tatsoi and others. On the other hand, although I continue to buy leeks and carrots throughout the summer (I use a lot of both), I also grow a few of my own. I like to pick the leeks younger than I can buy them in the shops and then grill them, to serve cold, dressed with olive oil. And my home-grown carrots tend to be eaten raw, or lightly steamed, whereas the shop-bought ones go into soups, stews and stocks.

There is no reason whatever why you should share these prejudices. You may have a passion for onions that urges you to grow twenty different varieties on your plot and nothing else. Or you may have escaped the school-dinners exposure to cauliflower that has pretty much put me off it for life. Let your own prejudices and passions feed your choice of seeds.

So, here you are at the garden centre, feasting your eyes on a wider selection of vegetable seed packets than you ever thought possible. Feast away. Anything that takes your fancy, pull off the shelf. Once you have made an intitial selection (you may have five packets in your hand, you may have fifty), review it for a minute or two. If you have second thoughts about anything, put it back. If you're worried about limited space, try and cut back to the things you feel most enthused by. You may wish to think in terms of a balance of vegetable types: some peas and beans; some leafy greens; a selection of salad leaves; a few reliable roots; some squashes or courgettes. Or you may have a highly personal, specialised radical vegetable agenda: an out-and-out bean feast or a vertical tasting of beetroot varieties. Whatever finally fires your imagination, take them to the till and cough up the cash.

I love heading home with a bunch of seed packets in my pocket. It's like being the god of a small planet: 'And on the seventh day he created pumpkins ...' So what do you do when you get the seeds home? Would it sound awfully prosaic and dull to suggest you read the instructions on the back of the packet? Now that's not quite so god-like.

Seed-packet gardening
Seriously, that's exactly what I'd recommend. I am a self-confessed seed-packet gardener, and have no shame about that, since I have found, with very few exceptions, that most seed packets tell you pretty much all you need to know about growing the seeds inside (the brands Suttons and Kings are particularly good from this point of view). Take, for example, the packet of Chanteney Red-core carrots that I happen to have in front of me. I quote, verbatim:

When to sow: March to May.
Where to sow: Sow very thinly in drills 1.5cm deep with 25cm between the rows.
What to do next: Carrot fly is attracted by thinning, so try to avoid thinning at all. If you have to thin the seedlings, do so in the evening, water before thinning and remove all debris from site.
Tip: Carrots prefer a well-worked, light-textured soil, free of stones, that has not recently been manured.

What else do you need to know? The two great bugbears of expert carrot growers up and down the land are carrot fly and root splitting. And all the wisdom those experts have accumulated over decades of growing and showing and arguing boils down to these essential tips: thin carefully, or ideally not at all, as the scent released by damaged plants attracts carrot fly. The soil should be well worked, more or less to the depth you intend to grow your carrots, and free of stones - if you care about having straight carrots, that is. Fresh manure is also best avoided, as the roots will tend to split in search of the goodness. Apart from a lot of entertaining hokum about soil sifting and drain pipes put about by vegetable showmen (a pursuit that I have myself indulged in, I confess), there's nothing else important to be said about growing carrots. In other words, if you've memorised the back of the packet, then congratulations: you are one of the world's leading authorities on carrot growing.

Direct Sowing versus Plug Gardening
Once the risk of frost is past (with any luck by the end of April in most places), just about any seeds can be sown directly into the ground and expected to grow. But even the seed-packet gardener will come across some alternative methods of propagation recommended on the back of their chosen packs: 'sow under glass...' is a phrase you will commonly encounter. The fact is that to encourage efficient germination and protect tiny seedlings in the first stages of growth from both harsh weather and hungry pests, many gardeners like to grow them in controlled conditions in seed trays and small pots - plug gardening. This is most often done in a greenhouse or cold frame (which is really a miniature greenhouse at ground level), but if you have a south-facing windowsill you can do it on a small scale in the house. I am a thorough and evangelical convert to the technique of plug gardening. Every March I sow vegetable seeds in special seed trays made up of plugs - little plastic pots about 5cm in diameter, joined together like a tray of fromage frais pots for children. The seedlings can then begin life without any competition or threat in the cosy environment of my polytunnel (a greenhouse or even a windowsill will do just as well). In this way, they are nurtured through the unreliable early spring weather, its plunging temperatures and harsh winds, and protected against the ravenous slug. By the time they are planted out - usually directly into the final growing site - they are sturdy enough to withstand an April hailstorm, and big enough to sacrifice a leaf or two to a hungry slug without being fatally injured.

Another advantage of plug gardening is that it enables you to get ahead of the season. If you sow seeds in plugs in, say, mid March, by the time the kinder weather arrives in late April you will have sturdy seedlings, well on the way to productive growth, to transplant to the growing site. A second crop of the same vegetables can then be sown directly into the ground, and you can look forward to a properly spaced harvest about six weeks apart. I like to do this with peas and broad beans for the earliest possible harvest. The best growing medium for sowing in seed trays and small pots is an all-round seedling/potting compost. You'll find dozens of brands in any garden centre but I'd urge you to choose something eco-friendly or, better still, organic. Many of the products are peat based, and peat is not a sustainable commodity. The best alternatives are soil or coir (coconut fibre) based. A lot of serious gardeners have their own special recipes for seedling compost, mixing in perlite and vermiculite, and even varying the mix according to the type of seedlings they plan to grow. Personally I plod on with a straightforward coir-based product and it does me fine. Compost for seedlings must not be over-compacted. Simply run the flat of your hand lightly over the surface to level off the plugs - don't press down to cram it all in. Potting compost tends to dry out quickly, so seedlings should be watered at least every two days, if not daily. Not everyone approves of plug gardening. Traditionalists argue that plug-raised seedlings are not as hardy as ones sown direct that have to run the gauntlet of early spring's natural hazards. They also point out that varieties that are prone to bolting - such as spinach, chard, fennel and some lettuces - tend to be even more so if given an artificial leg-up early in their life.

No doubt there's some truth in this. To minimise both these effects it is vital that your seedlings are 'hardened off' before transplanting. Essentially, this means giving them a part-time taste of the wind and weather going on outside their cosy world before the rude awakening of permanent relocation. The standard practice is to place your trays of plugs outside in the morning, then back inside in the evening, for five to seven days before transplanting them. I like to enhance this with short 'sneak previews' of the hardening-off experience earlier in the life of my seedlings. On cold but sunny mornings in March, I'll open the polytunnel at both ends and let the chilly wind blow through. I close it again in time for the afternoon sun to warm up the shivering seedlings before bedtime. I guess it's the same principle as the early-morning cold shower much favoured as a character-forming exercise for schoolboys in bygone days. Not that I approve of that, of course - Transplanting is easy and satisfying finger-work - but a bit delicate with really tiny seedlings. The ground does not need to be as finely raked as for direct seed sowing. But you should loosen the earth immediately around each planting site with a trowel or hand fork, and ideally work in a little of the potting compost you have been using: it will help to cosset the roots and ease the transition. Make a hole a fair bit bigger than the root ball of the plant, then hold the plant gently in place with one hand and bring in the loose soil/compost from around the edges to cover the roots. Be sure to bring the soil level up to the same point on the plant stem as the compost was in the pot - usually where white changes to green. Then firm the soil gently around with the fingertips. I find planting out seedlings one of the most exhilarating of all gardening jobs: the results are instantly visible, and you can fill up a whole bed with growing plants in just an hour or two.

Sowing under glass is more or less essential if you're growing courgettes, marrows, pumpkins and other squashes. These are essentially Mediterranean species that will not easily germinate until daytime temperatures are consistently above 15°C. This means they cannot be sown directly outside until late May at the earliest, and even then the young seedlings remain susceptible to harsh weather. In these circumstances there's barely enough summer left to bring the plants to maturity. They should therefore be planted under glass, one or two seeds in a 10cm pot, some time in April. By late May or early June four or more good strong leaves should have appeared. and they will be ready for transplanting.

The consensus, I think it's fair to say, is that plug-starting your seedlings is a particularly effective method for the organic gardener, who has chosen to forsake other, arguably more artificial, leg-ups for young plants, such as chemical fertilisers and pesticides. My own perspective is that it also works admirably well within the raised-bed system of vegetable gardening.

Ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the eating - literally. I have been plug-gardening for four seasons now and it's working very well for me. The sheer abundance of my vegetable garden come July is enough to convince me of that.