Fast growing vegetables will have you harvesting in no time

One of the great things about growing veggies, as all aficionados know, is that apart from asparagus, they're quick. Plant a tree, and you wait at least three years to see some sort of reward for your effort.

But plant a punnet of snow peas, as I did in early September, and within a couple of weeks, you're snipping shoots to flavour soups and salads, and in 10 weeks, the first delicate pods appear.

I can now harvest a handful every day should I so wish, while smugly noting that they're currently $29.99 a kilogram in our local grocery store and up to an eye-watering $49.95/kg for an online delivery outlet.

However, as my high school headmistress liked to say, now girls, if you're resting on your laurels, you're sitting in the wrong place, so I must sow a dozen more snow peas to take over when the current supply runs out.

Rocket is another speedster. My September punnet is now a lush looking crop, and its deeply serrated leaves add a yummy peppery flavour to salads. This is the perennial wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia) with tiny yellow flowers that I've left in place as bees love them.

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Wild rocket's only drawback is the tough and chewy stalks. Garden rocket (Eruca vesicaria) might be better next time. It's an annual with lobed leaves and white flowers and can be sown year-round throughout NSW.

Punnets of spinach and radicchio have matured, and we've been eating them for a few weeks, alternating with Bill's broad beans, which jumped into action in late October.

The spinach is lovely, but the radicchio disappointing, running rapidly to flower but not firming into the hearts I was longingly anticipating - I love radicchio.

I don't know where I went wrong; a radicchio loving friend reported the same problem. Was it the seed or the season? I'll have another crack at it: The packet shows oval shaped, dark red and white, crispy looking hearts, exactly what I want.

Root crops are slower, but the spring onions and baby beetroots are coming on well. The onions are almost ready to harvest, but although the beets are leafy, their dark red roots are still small.

Also, they're all trying to poke up out of the ground. I sternly pushed each one back, spread a bucket of soil through the crop, firmed it down, watered everything well and crossed my fingers.

Seeds sown last month have sprouted apart from the Queensland Blues. I guess the nights were too cold for pumpkins, though they were under cover. I'll keep the next sowing in the laundry.

Beans, zucchini, eggplants and squash seedlings are in a raised bed where they're taking stock of their surroundings but not growing yet. The corn I put in the garden as it takes up so much space.

I've now gone overboard and sown trays of tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, speckled lettuce, brown onions and cucumbers.

Sure the weather will warm up soon?