Baby bloom.

BABY veg have long been a favourite at the dinner table, but you can pay a lot for the pre-packed mini-carrots, courgettes and leeks in the supermarkets, which are often pretty tasteless.

It's worth trying to grow your own, but do you have to choose baby varieties or can you just pick veg early? Which? Gardening, the Consumers' Association magazine, trialled a number of veg to find out whether seed ranges of baby veg were any better than ordinary varieties grown close together or picked early.

The test site planted blocks of up to five varieties each of cauliflowers, courgettes, leeks, sweetcorn and carrots recommended for growing as baby veg. They also grew a standard variety at both normal and closer spacing, and picked them at the normal and smaller size for comparison.

Sowing leeks in April, they had decent baby leeks by the beginning of August and found the best variety was Electra, which produced a whopping 123 plants per square metre for a 2.6kg harvest.

The standard variety, Carlton, grown at closer spacing, produced 100 leeks and worked as a baby veg. When picked at a normal size it yielded 33 leeks per square metre, weighing 4.1kg.

Baby carrots are simply those which are harvested early, although a number of varieties including Parmex, Ideal and Mini Finger are often recommended for growing as mini veg.

Researchers sowed five varieties of these into the ground in rows spaced 15cm apart and thinned the seedlings to around 1cm-1.5cm apart. They also grew conventional Early Nantes in the same way. Harvesting began after 10 weeks and Mini Finger proved the best baby variety, while Amsterdam Force gave the lowest yield. However, the best results came from the Early Nantes when grown in the same way as the baby veg and picked as a baby carrot.

Carrots can be difficult to establish early on in the season. The soil needs to be moist and at least 7C in the early morning. Later crops should be covered with fleece to stop carrot fly attacking the roots.

With courgettes, the best baby veg variety was Supremo, but you have to pick them frequently to stop them becoming too large. Simply harvest them smaller than normal, planting one plant per metre.

The least successful baby veg was undoubtedly sweetcorn, as each plant produced only a couple of cobs. Grow the bigger varieties, which will give you heavier cobs and will be a much better use of space.

Cauliflowers, however, fared better. Avalanche and Candid Charm are ideal if you don't want them too big. Sow straight into the soil or start in modules and transplant carefully as they don't like root disturbance. Water in dry spells and give equal spacing between plants. The two smaller varieties produced more to eat than the standard Sydney.. The full report is featured in the November edition of Which? Gardening, a subscription-only magazine. For details on how to receive three issues for pounds 3, call 01992 822800 or visit which.co.uk Baby carrots (main) and leeks (inset bottom) are good growers, but baby sweetcorn (inset top) is less successful