Five tips for growing your own food at home

Anything can be a planter

You don’t need to fork out for fancy pots and planters, plenty of household items can be recycled into a container for your garden. You might opt for an old mop bucket or some cleaned out paint cans - even yoghurt pots can be used to grow seedlings!

Just remember to add in some drainage holes, this will help stop your plants from drowning or developing rot.

Keep your soil nice and loose

A common mistake new gardeners make is going overboard with soil. If you’re using containers to house your vegetables, make sure you keep your soil nice and loose for planting. If you fill your pot or planter to the brim and then press it down, it’s less soil and more like concrete for a plant. Fingers crossed, your plants will be doing a lot of growing, so make sure they can move about easily.

Planting up, rather than out

Short on space? No problem, you can maximise your veg patch by growing up, rather than out. Vertical gardening utilises trellises, cages, string, and other supports to train certain varieties of vegetables to grow upwards, which can help you save a lot of space.

Alongside providing extra room for growth, this method can also improve the circulation of your plants. Better circulation means you can prevent mildew and other diseases that thrive in cramped conditions.

Give your seeds the best start

The cheapest way to grow produce is to start from seed, rather than buying starter plants from the garden centre. You could even gather seeds from the vegetables you already have in your fridge by plucking them out and drying them.

No matter where you get your seeds, you should sow them into a fine compost, which is usually labelled ‘seed compost’ in the shops. Grow them in a 10cm sized pot and once four or five leaves have emerged, they should be ready to go outside or into a bigger, indoor container.

With any luck, in a few months time, you’ll be able to enjoy your first home-grown meal!