How many of each?

I usually grow several different tomatoes, around a dozen. I grow a couple of Tumbling Toms in a large pot because they are early and I can be harvesting by June. The vines are a mixture of different colours, sizes and flavours, depending on what I'm using them for. For example, Green Zebra is my favourite tomato for a salad sliced with mozzarella. I also enjoy the novelty of trying a few new varieties each year alongside the old reliable ones.

I grow at least a dozen different french beans. Dwarf ones for an earlier harvest, green, yellow and purple ones. I also grow green, yellow and purple climbing varieties for the main summer crop, then sow more dwarf beans for a later crop. I love my fresh beans!

Several shelling beans are grown too, but that's a recent development for me. This year I grew six different shelling beans and I really enjoyed doing that even though I didn't have great success with the gigantes and borlotti beans. The others did really well and I like having the variety of bean markings, sizes and shapes. They look beautiful stored in their jars on the shelf.

I grew several different winter squash too, from a sprawling butternut to some bushy acorn squash and also mini climbing pumpkins I trained up a bamboo teepee. Again, I love the variety of shapes and sizes.

Everything else I'm pretty much happy with just the one variety. For example, my favourite lettuce is Little Gem so I tend to just grow that one.