Grow Your Own

Get ready to grow

When thinking about which crops to grow, remember that the best value comes from crops that are expensive to buy in the shops, difficult to find, or simply have more vibrancy and taste when picked fresh. And these aren’t necessarily the most difficult to grow...

GYO guide

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Grow Your Own

Planting guide

A quick quide to when to plant vegetables and herbs, and when to harvest.

Grow Your Own

Planting in pots

The most convenient way of growing a few crops is in pots or containers – no digging needed, nor much space. With luck, they’ll fit just outside the kitchen door. Good crops for pots include baby salad leaves, strawberries and oregano.

Grow Your Own

Growing along a fence

Home-grown fruit tastes incomparably better than fruit from shops because you can pick it when it’s really ripe. It doesn’t have to survive on the supermarket shelf – it only has to make it up the garden path!

Grow Your Own

Planting a veggie bed

A small, narrow veggie bed isn't nearly as daunting as a large vegetable plot. Packed full, it can be amazingly productive and an attractive garden feature in its own right. Crops that grow in containers will usually do equally well – if not better – in a bed.

Grow Your Own

Herbs around the garden

Perennial herbs (ones that carry on growing from year to year) are simple to grow and terrific value. They’re also an ideal grow-your-own crop as the volatile oils in herb leaves are easily destroyed by handling and storing, so they’re at their best when picked fresh.

November