As I wandered around my garden last night. I felt so grateful. I have salad leaves, cucumbers, spinach, raspberries, rhubarb, peas, strawberries, chickory and courgettes, all there on hand to enhance my diet and reduce my spend. Potatoes, currants, tomatoes, green beans and beetroot are not far behind.
People have said to me that they can’t afford to have a garden or don’t have the space. I grow the majority of mine in containers and use old toy boxes, bags, broken buckets, dustbins, mushroom boxes (make holes in the bottom of them all), as well as some free plant pots I got from an online local page. I plant my seeds in grape boxes or fruit packaging as they already have holes in the bottom, and use meat packaging underneath as drip trays. I make my own compost and use seeds from supermarket produce, or get them in sales, or as gifts.
Sometimes I swop plants that I have propagated with ones I want. I swopped strawberry plants from runners and black currant bushes that were grown from cut branches for seeds this year.
I have some bamboo sticks to use as supports but if I don’t have enough I will use sticks foraged from the local woods. Plant ties are cut up strips of a pair of tights, and my little watering can is a large plastic milk bottle with holes drilled in the lid. Plant labels are also cut up bits of a milk carton or old lolly sticks. My fork and spade cost £5 the pair from a car boot sale, and in the past I have made a mini green house or cold frame by putting an old window or plastic on top of a box.
It is not too late to plant some vegetables this year. Spring cabbage, carrots, salad leaves, and radishes can all be planted now, and even beans in the South of the UK. I also plant potatoes and just put bubble wrap around the pots when it is time for frost. Home grown veg tastes so much better and has more nutrients as it is fresher than the stuff you buy in the supermarket. Why not have a go, even if it is just a box of cress on your window sill?
