Tim Matcham Garden Design

Grow your Own Vegetables

TIP 1

With vegetable seeds typically being sold in packs of hundreds of seeds, why not get together with your friends or family to share your seeds (and the costs!). You could even have a competition to see who can grow the biggest crop.

Take a pack of Lollo Rossa seeds:

• you get approximately 250 seeds
• seeds take around 48 days to mature to full grown plants
• plant 10 seeds in the FIRST week; wait 2 weeks then plant another 10 etc
• you get a regular supply of salad leaves for all the family
• do this FIVE times a year and still have 200 seeds left!

A pack of 250 seeds costs £1.99. Share it five ways – that’s less than 40p each! At the time of writing a bag of salad leaves from Tesco costs £1.15. If you bought one bag of salad leaves a week during the summer months, it would cost you £29.90.

Growing your own gives you a tidy profit of £29.50; possibly more if you were to buy organic. Plus you know where your salad has come from and you have reduced your carbon footprint. Actually thinking about it, you would end up with more salad than you could eat over a longer period so your profit would be even greater.

This example features lettuce but you can do the same with other salad favourites such as radish, rocket, tomato, cucumber, chives, coriander and basil etc.

The joy about growing your own vegetables is that you don’t need a huge garden or allotment to make it work. Try these simple and cost saving ways:

• Yoghurt pot seedling starter. Put a few holes in the base of your pot, fill with compost and seeds, place pot in pot lid (acts as a water tray), and pop on windowsill, water and watch them grow.
• Patio containers. Plant ornamental flowers among your vegetable or salad seeds and you have a pretty, productive and easy to maintain display.
• Plant eye catching and vibrant vegetables such as artichokes as border plants in your garden beds.

Seeds can be bought from garden and shopping centres or online. The seed example used can be bought online from Thompson & Morgan

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Tags:   benefit · garden design · gardening · Inspiration · low maintenance · money saving · opportunity · reduced carbon · SuccessNo Comments