Grow Your Own: salad

Rather than buying a whole bag of salad or loose whole lettuces that risk ending up going slimy in the fridge, you can grow your own really easily on a windowsill, balcony or garden that you can just keep sowing and picking just as much as you need.  It will keep producing more and have no chemicals on it!

Buy some seeds from wilkos or sainsbury's or somewhere and a shallow tray and a bit of compost. Sprinkle the seeds finely on the compost and water. As the seedlings grow, you'll see that some a very close together so pinch the weedy ones out when they all have two leaves. After about 3 weeks, sprinkle some more seeds around the grown plants so that you have a later crop.


1 bag of salad - £1.50

= 2 servings

seeds - 75p
compost - £1
seed tray - £1

= all the salad you can eat, for about a year!

Grow Your Own: herbs

If you have a sunny windowsill, tender herbs are really easy to grow.  You can find pretty cheap kits (posts, seeds, compost) in garden centres and places like Wilkos. o just buy the seeds, some compost and reuse containers with drainage holes.

You can also grow them from cuttings:





If you have a garden, you are lucky enough to be able to grow woodier herbs like rosemary and bay.. Beware, they get huge so you need to cut them regularly.  Rosemary needs lots of sun but bay copes well with some shade.

Mint is super easy to grow outside. There are loads of varieties and it's great to have your own mint tea. Do make sure that you grow it in a container though as it has a habit of taking over everything - mint sends of little runners that burrow down and then pop up all over the place.  It took me 2 years to tame a rogue mint plant in my garden!

If you feel like getting adventurous with your herb growing, I totally recommend Herbal Haven as a supplier - they are online as well as at various London Farmers' Markets. it's quite fun to go to see them and get advice about where to plant/how to care for herbs you've never heard of before!!

Grow Your Own: chillies

Chilli's often get wasted if you buy a bag of them from the supermarket. A cheaper way to buy them is loose from a local shop. An even cheaper way is to buy a plant and grow your own!

They are really cheap from a garden centre from about May (about £4 from B&Q or Homebase, cheaper probably from a plant stall somewhere). Just keep in on a sunny windowsill and water when dry but not too much. If the soil is dry, water it. If it goes a bit yellow, you've watered it too much so leave it alone for a while and it should perk up.

First there will be flowers. Then come the chillies. And the more you pick, the more will grow. Like magic! If it is a green variety then pick them when they look like chillies. If they are red, purple or yellow, then they will be green to start with but will change colour as they ripen in the sun.

If you cook with a lot of chillies then this is definitely the cheapest and most handy way to go.

If you get really into it then try growing from seed! You will need to sow them in about March on a warm windowsill.