Starting Your Own Home Garden
Save your money on seeds and your food bill!
To embark on your self-sustainability journey of growing your own vegetable and or fruit, you may consider investing in a variety of seeds. I certainly did, and if I'm honest, I spent a small fortune on the seeds! It's easy to get carried away with visions of vast swaths of vegetables growing in your garden and small orchards on your front lawn, producing your own fruits, but being realistic, you are unlikely to use most of your seed purchases, as once you see how many seeds you have and most likely realise how little room you actually have in the garden, and the time it would take to maintain vast amounts of crops, you'll likely downsize your food growing plans, but that's ok!
It's fine to start small; in fact, you may not even have a garden, but that's ok too; no matter how big or small your growing area is, there's still going to be enough room to produce your own food, and you don't even have to spend any money on seeds!
We all buy vegetables from the supermarket, don't we, then we use what we need and throw the rest away, but a great way to really maximise your purchase is to keep the seeds within the fruit or vegetables and then use them to grow your food; why buy seeds when you already have loads in your fridge, hiding inside your veggies?
Using the viable seeds in the produce you already have to grow your own is a tried and tested way to give yourself an almost endless supply of your favourite veggies and fruit! Lots of people, including myself, use these store-bought veggies to grow their own crops in their gardens. Home gardeners can save a fortune by simply taking the seeds from existing produce and popping them into a little soil or onto a plate or saucer, with a bit of water and leaving them, preferably in direct sunlight, a sunny windowsill works wonders, or at least in a warm place to allow the seeds to germinate. It won't take too long, probably within a couple of weeks, to see green shoots appear, observe new growth, and then stronger new roots start to form.
Once the sprouting process begins, you can transfer the seedlings to larger pots to allow the parent plant to develop further. Once the plants are nice and strong, and the weather is warmer, (early spring onwards), or at least the chance of frosts has gone, you can sow your plants into your garden, greenhouse, planter, window sill box, or wherever else you have a little room for growing your own fruit and vegetables.
There are many stories that go around saying that the seeds inside the fruit and vegetables we buy when grocery shopping, won't grow new plants, and that they have been specially treated to avoid new growth, but if that's true, I've been very lucky as I've had tremendous results over the years with my store-bought vegetables! Seeds you buy from professional seed producers are normally hybrid seeds, and these are seeds from specially developed plants to withstand diseases and to produce higher yields, and that's why there are more expensive to buy, but for someone who wants to grow a few veggies at home, there really isnt a reason you can use your own seeds to produce cheap and tasty home-grown food!
I tend to stick to the vegetables that give the most 'crop' for the amount of space that I have to grow within, which isn't very much. For that reason, I tend to grow plants from pepper seeds, french bean seeds, tomato seeds and cucumber seeds, as they produce lots of vegetables but take up only a minimal amount of room in my garden. I also have used store-bought potatoes that have been left too long and have started to sprout, to grow my own potatoes, and I grow them in some cheap potato growing bags I bought from Amazon, and they grow on my driveway! Initially, I bought a bag of seed potatoes for doing this, but now I just use shop-bought spuds, or keep back a few of the potatoes I've grown, to replant and grow into a potato plant for the next crop, which works well!
The produce I grow at home is fast growing and gives maximum results, but you will find that if you use fruit seeds to grow your own fruit, it won't be a quick process. You can plant your seeds and you'll get apple trees and pear trees growing, but it can take at least a couple of years for the trees to produce tree fruits in your own garden, and if you try to plant lots of tropical plants, hoping to grown your own pineapple, you'll likely be disappointed in our cold wetaher climate, but you just never know what those seeds might produce, over time!
Once you've grown your own produce, make sure you keep some seeds for next year. Dry them out and keep them in an airtight container to keep moisture out and mould from forming. Adding a silica gel sachet (you can buy them from Amazon) really helps repel moisture. I invested in a vacuum sealing machine, and I then vacuum seal the seeds into bags, and they then stay in perfect condition for when they're needed again. Storing seeds in a cool, dark place can extend their shelf life.
You don't just have to rely on seeds to grow your own; Utilise kitchen scraps; use carrot tops and parsnip tops and use the roots of spring onions, celery and lettuce to regrow them! Just add the hard vegetable offcuts to a shallow bowl of water and place them somewhere with good sunlight, and once you have roots, plant them in the garden and they'll regrow. The softer vegetables like spring onions can be placed so the roots are in water (change the water regularly), and the roots will have a dramatic surge of growth, and you'll quite quickly find them producing the edible parts again!
I use the less yummy-looking strawberries to grow my own strawberry plants, place a couple of cut strawberries onto the top of moist soil, and they start to sprout and develop into plants; the same works with tomatoes as well!
Once they've grown, use the edible parts and do it again! I usually do it a couple of times; it is a great way to beat high food prices!
Even in limited spaces, such as balconies or window sills, it's possible to grow vegetables. Green onions, bean sprouts, and bok choy are excellent choices for smaller plants that can thrive in confined spaces.
If you don't have any room for vegetables, why not grow your own herbs instead? I usually grab the live fresh herbs from supermarkets in pots that are yellow stickered as they aren't in the best condition, then split the herbs into smaller pots, add some extra compost and then they usually spring back into life and produce loads of herbs all year long, and your house smells amazing! You can have a small herb garden on the window sill in your kitchen, bedroom, even in your loo if you want (actually forget that bit, don't grow them in your loo!), you really don't need much room at all!
Building wooden planters from recycled materials, such as old pallets, is an eco-friendly approach. You'll often find people getting rid of pallets on Facebook, and they make great planter boxes. Don't use the blue ones though, they are owned by Cheps, and they get pretty unhappy when they see their expensive pallets being used to anything other than transporting goods! I made several pallet planters during the first lockdown, and 4 years on, they're still going strong! I just re-paint them every year to make sure they don't rot, but they've been awesome and only cost me a couple of quid for the paint and nails!
Reducing Food Waste
Combat food waste by utilising your kitchen scraps and seeds to grow new plants, but also consider composting to enrich your soil and contribute to a more sustainable lifestyle. Again, you don't need much room, and it will likely take a year or so to develop properly, but it's a great way to produce your own nutrient-rich potting compost at no cost!
Incorporating these practices into your gardening routine can make a significant impact on your wallet, mental health and self-sustainability journey, no matter if you have a spacious garden or just a small balcony; growing your own food in 2024 is a rewarding and environmentally conscious endeavour.
There are some great tips about growing your own vegetables on the Prada Planet website.
Drying sweetcorn ready for harvesting the kernels to use as seeds next year