With the rising cost of living many people will be trying to make their budget stretch further. Growing your own herbs, fruit and vegetables is a fantastic way to cheaply supplement what you buy from the supermarket. Nothing beats the flavour of home-grown, and you can guarantee your food has been grown without chemicals. Even a small space can grow a surprising amount of fresh food.
But, if you have never grown your own food before how do you decide what to grow? You will want to get the most from your time, your available space and budget. Start by grabbing a pen and paper then ask yourself the following three questions:
1. What space do I have for growing?
Fruit and vegetables can be dotted in between existing plants in flower beds. Areas of lawn can be turned over to an allotment style bed. A patio area can have tubs and pots with salads and strawberries. Even a balcony will probably have space for a couple of large pots, and strawberries, salads and herbs can be grown in window boxes.
If you are handy with tools and can get hold of a pallet or two, it is quite simple to make a raised bed. Lift any turf, fork over the soil at the bottom and add lots of multi-purpose compost mixed with some topsoil. Keep it narrow enough to reach the middle without walking on the soil; 120cm/4ft is about right.
Most crops do well in a sunny spot but a little shade is useful for salads or other leafy crops because excessive heat and drought can make them bolt (flower and seed early). If this happens they become very bitter and not nice to eat.
To get good healthy crops your soil needs to be loose and full of organic matter. You’ll need to fork it over and remove any weeds. Adding a bag of multi-purpose compost to enrich the soil will really help. For annual crops in pots and tubs multi-purpose compost is fine.
2. Which herbs, fruits and vegetables do we actually eat regularly?
This question may seem a bit obvious but many people choose seeds and plug plants based on what they think will be easy or fun to grow rather than what they actually eat. Make an extensive list of what you would like to eat.
3. Which of these are the cheapest or most expensive in the supermarket?
Sort each item into ‘cheap to buy’, ‘average to buy’ and ‘expensive to buy’. Generally people eat a lot of potatoes and carrots both of which are fairly cheap to buy. So is it worth growing them? Potatoes take up a lot of space and are in the ground for 4 to 6 months so it is probably not worth growing them yourself unless you have acres of space. Carrots grow more quickly and you can get a good crop from a small space so maybe they would be a good choice for you.
The expensive or average items need careful consideration. These items should be high up your list for growing. Bagged lettuce is really expensive to buy but easy to grow. It is quick to go from seed to harvest, takes up very little space and is always top of my list to grow at home.
Fruit is often in the expensive to buy column. Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries can be really expensive at the supermarket and yet don’t taste as good as home grown ones. If you like these fruits it is worth finding space for them. Strawberries and blueberries are great for containers on a patio or balcony. Blueberry plants are an investment for the future. They are more expensive to buy and take a couple of years growing before they crop heavily. Strawberry plants are cheaper. They also produce new baby plants so you can increase the number of plants you have for free.
Small Space Big Harvest
Go through each section of your list and think about how much space each vegetable would take up. Research spacings for planting on the back of seed packets or online. Cauliflower plants need lots of room so you won’t get much return from a small space. Broccoli needs a similar size area, but after cutting the main head it will continue to produce smaller heads for many months. This means you get more from the same space. Broccoli is also much easier to grow, cauliflowers are somewhat temperamental.
Some plants, like pumpkins, take up a lot of room and you may only get one or two pumpkins on a plant. Courgettes take up around a square metre but crop heavily all summer, making them a worthwhile choice.
Some plants crop heavily without taking up much space on the ground because they grow upwards. Climbing beans and a few bamboo canes are a really good choice and the space underneath can be used by lettuce, spinach or radishes.
If planting veg in containers choose varieties that are smaller such as dwarf French beans or snub nosed carrots and check daily if they need watering. Annual herbs and salad leaves don’t need big or deep containers but be aware that smaller pots dry out much faster.
Make the best use of your space by growing a little but often. Sow a sprinkle of lettuce seeds every 2 weeks to spread out the harvest and avoid having a glut. Sow the fastest growing crops in between slower growing crops. Radish for example, can be sown close to any other crop and harvested before the other crop gets too big.
Maintenance
The four most important aspects of maintaining your plants to get a good crop are: weeding, watering, feeding and pests.
Weeds
Try to keep on top of weeds. If you sow your seeds in rows you will know that anything outside of the row is a weed and can be pulled up. Weeds will use up valuable nutrients in the soil and will self seed to make more weeds. Once each week check around and pull up any you see.
Watering
beds and borders needs to be checked twice weekly in summer. Soaking the soil once each week is much better than watering a small amount daily. Anything growing in a pot needs checking every day. Water the soil not the plant, keeping the leaves dry and the soil moist. Mulching the surface with compost makes a huge difference in preventing soil from drying out and it reduces weed growth. Plants that are dry will not crop so well and are more vulnerable to pests and diseases.
Feeding
Invest in a bottle of liquid feed such as tomato or seaweed feed. Tomato feed is great for any crops that fruits including cucumbers, pumpkins, strawberries and tomatoes. Seaweed feed is best for anything leafy like salads, leeks or cabbages. Dilute it to the strength it says on the bottle and water the soil around your plants with it once each week. I do mine on ‘Feedy Friday’ to help me remember.
Pests
Pests can really put people off but don’t panic you can expect some small losses and still get a decent crop. The main pests will be:
Slugs and snails, which on a damp night can eat their way through your salads – go on a hunt, find where they like to hide and relocate them at least 100metres away. Reward your children for every slug or snail they find in the veg patch and make it a game. Beer traps work well if you can stop local foxes from helping themselves to the booze!
Aphids (greenfly/whitefly/blackfly) – – check the tips of shoots and backs of leaves once each week and remove them by hand. Ants often farm aphids for their honeydew. So if you see blackfly colonizing a runner bean plant check for ants running up and down the stem.
Caterpillars are usually only a problem on brassicas (kale, broccoli etc.) Cover those with fine mesh to stop the butterflies getting in.
Birds like strawberries and raspberries but they are not likely to do much damage.
You might find woodlice or ants in holes in your strawberries. They move into holes created by slugs or snails. Deal with the slimy critters and you won’t have a problem.
Find out what ladybird larvae and hoverfly larvae look like. These are good insects and will eat their way through lots of aphids. So if you see them leave them where they are.
Shopping List Suggestions
These crops are reliable, productive and ideal for beginners on a budget. They can also all be sown directly outside with no need for starting off in modules or trays. If you can manage a little extra cost for seed trays and compost you will be able to start growing and harvesting earlier in the year.
Grow from seed: (Packets of seeds start from 99p)
- Lettuce (seed packets of mixed leaves)
- Climbing beans (runner beans or French beans, you will need bamboo canes or similar to create a wigwam for them to climb up and string/twine)
- Radish (from seed to harvest in as little as 4 weeks)
- Carrots (spring variety and an autumn variety)
- Spinach (perpetual spinach doesn’t run to seed so quickly and will crop for longer)
- Peas (particularly mangetout or snow peas)
- Kale (an excellent veg to sow in August to take you through the winter months)
- Beetroot (‘Bolthardy’ is a tried and trusted variety)
- Spring onions
- Swiss Chard (will keep cropping into autumn winter)
- Baby turnips
- Coriander
- Parsley
If you don’t have seed trays and modules it’s worth considering purchasing the following as plug plants:
- Tomato (choose an outdoor variety or a tumbling variety for a hanging basket)
- Courgettes (1 or 2 plants are sufficient for a family)
- Cucumber (choose an outdoor variety)
Other choices
- Chives and other perennial herbs are easiest bought as a pot from the herb section of your local Tates Garden Centre.
- Strawberries – growing in hanging baskets prevents slug damage
Worth the investment!
- Raspberries – Autumn varieties are easier to grow and care for. Grow a row at the back or side of a bed or in a large pot.
- Blueberries – If you are on chalky soil grow them in a pot using ericaceous compost.
- Liquid feed like Vitax Seaweed feed or Tomorite
Growing your own doesn’t just save money—it gives you fresher food, better flavour and a real sense of achievement. Start small, learn as you go, and you’ll be surprised how much you can grow.
*Blog updated March 2025
By our resident horticultural expert
