A Beginner's Guide To Growing Your Own Food

 The weather is (finally) starting to warm up and now is the perfect time to start growing your own vegetables. Growing your own is a fantastic way of getting fresh food cheaply. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need an allotment or a large garden in order to grow your own - many vegetables and herbs are happy growing in pots on your patio or on your windowsill. Remember that you can also grow vertically - cucumbers, peas and beans all take little horizontal space but can produce large amounts of vegetables if you train them up a trellis.

Here is Checkout Spy's beginner's guide to growing vegetables:

1. Don't buy too much seed
Beginner gardeners often get carried away and buy loads of different varieties in their first year. However it is much better to buy just a couple of different seed types and grow them well rather than growing loads of different varieties badly. If you grow a lot of things, you may not be able to look after them all well and you may end up discouraged thanks to the poor results. It is also a good idea to only buy things you know you will eat - it should go without saying that you should only really look to buy seeds for vegetables you will actually eat!

2. Gardening Books
Grow Your Own Vegetables by Joy Larkcom is the book which is most recommended by vegetable growers up and down the country. There are plenty of other vegetable growing books on the market however this one is really comprehensive yet is simple and easy to understand. A definite must-have item.

3. Don't use cheap compost
Cheap compost often doesn't hold water well, particularly cheap peat-free composts. This means that any water will wash the nutrients out of the soil leaving less food for your plants. Cheap compost is a false economy as it will waste your seeds - it is better to pay a little bit extra and get good compost which will in turn give you wonderful vegetables. 

Home-made compost is a definite must if you can. There are plenty of different composters to choose from to suit your needs - from the standard large black plastic tub, through to wormeries or bokashi bins.

4. Keep up with the weeding
It is really important to keep your veg patch nice and weed free as weeds will steal light, water and nutrients away from your vegetables and therefore stunt their growth. It is best to get weeds when they are young as they are easier to pull out and kill. The best thing to do is to use a hoe and to weed when it is nice and sunny as a hot, dry day will damage them so much they will die and they don't be able to recover and re-root.

5. Sunlight
Vegetables do not do well in the shade so if you have a very shady garden, vegetable growing may not be great. You can't grow too much well on a window sill either as even if it is south facing, there often isn't enough light. However you may be able to grow small herbs such as basil on a windowsill successfully. The key here is to know what plants thrive in what conditions - and then choose your plants accordingly.

A few suggestions for different types of conditions:
Less sunny: Lettuce, mizuna, cress, kale
Full sun: Carrot, beetroot, radish, cucumber, beans, peas, mange-tout, courgette
Warm & sunny: Tomatoes, chilli peppers, sweet peppers, aubergines

6. Save your own seed
Learn to save your own seed as this will reduce the cost of vegetable growing in future years. If you can also make your own compost, this will reduce your vegetable growing costs even more. Saving your own seed is not as difficult as many people make out! Realseeds.co.uk has fantastic guides to saving your own seed, so be sure to check their detailed guides out.

7. Save and swap
If your friends, family or neighbours also grow their own vegetables, swap seeds! This way, you will be able to grow a variety of vegetables cheaply and will also be able to try new things. You can also swap hints and tips on how to grow the best vegetables.

The most important thing about growing your own is to HAVE FUN! 

If you still aren't sure what vegetables you fancy growing, Checkout Spy recommends the following:

Mange Tout: Peas are really easy to grow, however mangetout tends to have a longer season and produces more produce. These are fantastic eaten straight off the plant.
Courgette: A really easy plant to grow. One or two plants is really all you need as they do produce a huge glut otherwise.
Tomatoes: Most beginner gardeners start with tomatoes as they are easy to grow. Plenty of great varieties to choose from. Best kept only if your garden is warm & sunny.
Chard: A lovely unusual choice that you often won't see in your local supermarket - so a brilliant vegetable to experiment with.
Lettuce: Quick to grow, and plenty of varieties to choose from. Often better to go for a looser-head variety where you can pick the leaves as and when you want them.
Mint: A top tip for mint is to keep it constrained in a pot. If you are going to plant in your garden, plant the plastic pot too otherwise mint has the tendency to spread quickly and take over the garden. Perfect for mint tea, there are also some lovely unusual varieties to choose from such as the chocolate mint.

And if you have children, sunflowers are a great introduction to gardening as they grow quickly, are brightly coloured, and are fantastic for competitions to see who can grow the tallest one!