Grow Your Own
Chef Skye Gyngell's favourite homegrown herbs, plus tips for growing, harvesting and cooking.
Garden centres will supply seeds and seedlings, but for more unusual varieties look online. Here are a few recommended websites.
Top tips on nurturing your growing kitchen.
Berries and soft fruit are delicious, nutritious and really easy to grow at home, explains chef Skye Gyngell.
"The produce of summer is glorious – and courgettes, peas and broad beans are among the finest,” says chef Skye Gyngell. We're right behind you, Skye.
Vegetables grown in containers will need to be kept well watered...
Your salad garden
Chef Skye Gyngell and gardener Lucy Boyd from Petersham Nurseries share tips on growing the best salad vegetables at home.
Salad crops tend to deteriorate rapidly once picked, making them ideal candidates for grow your own. Here, Skye and Lucy (pictured) guide you through her choice of salad crops that are easy to grow in containers.
WILD ROCKET
Rocket adds a distinctive peppery flavour to salads. Dress leaves with salt, lemon, olive oil and vinegar or serve with fresh Parmesan.
Growing: Forget the propagator, this is easy to sow (at 1cm depth) from seed directly into larger pots from late spring to August. Seedlings will appear in about a week. Thin the plants to keep 20cm apart. Put in light shade.
Harvesting: Leaves are ready to pick after about 30 days. For a continuous supply, sow a new pot every couple of weeks.
SALAD LEAVES
A selection of varied salad leaves forms the basis of a classic salad or summer soup. Easy to grow varieties include Saladisi or Mesclun Mix, while Mizuna and Mache (lamb’s lettuce) are favourites at Petersham Nurseries.
Growing: For a continuous supply of fresh leaves throughout summer and early autumn, try sowing some seeds every few weeks from March to August.
Fill a 20-45cm pot almost to the top with multi-purpose compost and scatter seeds thinly across the surface, cover with compost, then water. When seedlings are 2cm tall, thin out.
Harvesting: Start to harvest 3-4 weeks later, taking leaves or cutting whole plants.
BEET 'BULL'S BLOOD'
Beet ‘Bull’s Blood’ is mainly grown for its striking purple leaves. Skye loves using the leaves in salads, as they have a lovely earthy taste.
Growing: Sow outdoors, in a large pot, in late spring. Water well. When seedlings are 2cm, thin so the plants are 8cm apart.
Harvesting: Harvest with scissors when the plants are about 8cm high, usually about 35 days from sowing. Sow a new pot every couple of weeks for a constant supply of leaves.
TOMATOES
Black Russian, Tigerella and Roma are all excellent. Skye and Lucy love Marmande, which is a huge beefsteak tomato, and San Marzano, the king of plum tomatoes. Yellow cherry tomatoes are also great, as they are hard to find in shops.
Growing: Sow seeds indoors during March and April. When the seedlings are 15cm tall, transfer to a 12cm pot – stake each with a small cane. Plant into a 10-litre pot outside in late spring or early summer, securing with a 1.8m cane.
Harvesting: Fruit will start to appear at around 6-8 weeks after sowing. Unless you are growing bushy, cherry tomatoes, snap outside shoots, growing from the leaf joints of single stem varieties and feed weekly with a liquid tomato food once flowers appear.
When four flowering trusses have formed, pinch out the growing tip. Water well.