In terms of suggestions to get started, I’d always recommend herbs – you can really feel like you’re achieving something even with just a windowbox.

Thyme and oregano and remarkably resilient; rosemary can be attacked by a beetle that’s recently arrived from the Med. Bay is great if you have space. Sorrel is lovely but mine seems to get eaten a lot – and not by me. Mint is easy but can spread, so you need to pot it in order to constrain the roots.

Otherwise, I bought tomato and strawberry and chilli plants last year – and all worked well. We didn’t get masses of strawberries, but the flavour was one of the reasons I wanted to expand. The chillies are great to dry if you have enough – or use to flavour oils and vinegars.

Runner beans have proved good for me (fingers crossed) and I currently have my first two courgette plants going great guns (more crossed fingers). Salad leaves are easy, but I’ve yet to have any joy with radishes or spring onions.

My peas have been completely mucked up by the lack of a spring this year – I had got a early cropper and by the time it started to grow, it was too late in the year. It’s died even as the few pods were just beginning to fatten up. The broad beans – which did better last year – are in a similar situation.

I planted a blackcurrant bush in January, and there’s a small crop. It’s settled very well.

I’ll make more changes for next year – I’m planning raised beds, which will allow even more control of the soil. But it is a bug.

Incredible Edible in Todmorden started planting anywhere and everywhere, the canal bank, the police station garden, graveyards ... anywhere.
The idea being that the food that grew was free to anyone who wanted it.

The truly amazing bit is that, in general, people respect it and have joined in, planting more and more.

That is fantastic.

I saw a report on TV a week or so ago about communal orchards, brought back, effectively, from the dead.

We've got the beginnings of communal gardening happening here. I didn't start it for that reason, but I am also trying to be aware of and encourage that if I can - and it does seem to be my actions that have started it. I'm quite chuffed with that.

First attempt at cauli's and sprouts this year.
Think sprouts are all just about deceased.
Cauli's flourishing.

Had rakes of strawberries out of the greenhouse already and cherry tomatoes should be about ready in a couple of weeks.

Seeing as we seem to have strayed into a bit of gardening etc let me just say I couldn't agree more about last year being a complete disaster...all I got of my allotment was a few spuds and little else. This year though seems to be much better. I've had my first new pots of the year of my allotment yesterday (great boiled and crushed with a bit of sea salt and a drop of olive oil!), some great rosso lettuce and buckets of strawberries. Also had my first courgette which is an achievement seeing as I didn't get a single one last year. As a poster above mentions blackurrants I've also had my first crop which was a surprise as I thought it was a gooseberry bush!
Having said all that it's not so much about the produce I get but place to go with a flask of tea, get my deck chair out and sit and have cup of tea and a cig!

Musky wrote:Has anybody ever tried growing their own? We have a reasonable size garden and are thinking of putting a few fruit bushes and basic veg such as lettuce, beetroot, spuds etc. have registered on the growfruitandveg.co.uk forum for help on planning my plot buth thought i would ask here too. I'd suggest that unless you are planting heritage spuds to stick to growing the more expensive stuff and leaving the spuds to the supermarket, unless your reasonable size is something like a football pitch. Beans and peas of all varieties go well, carrots, parsnips, swedes, turnips and beets can last a while in the ground making the season last quite well and can be frozen too. Salads like lettuce and cucumber will save you money as will stuff like cabbages and cauliflower. Another site you'll need is http://www.allotment-garden.org/recipe/ for all the glut of veg you'll have.

Musky wrote:Has anybody ever tried growing their own? We have a reasonable size garden and are thinking of putting a few fruit bushes and basic veg such as lettuce, beetroot, spuds etc. have registered on the growfruitandveg.co.uk forum for help on planning my plot buth thought i would ask here too. I'd suggest that unless you are planting heritage spuds to stick to growing the more expensive stuff and leaving the spuds to the supermarket, unless your reasonable size is something like a football pitch. Beans and peas of all varieties go well, carrots, parsnips, swedes, turnips and beets can last a while in the ground making the season last quite well and can be frozen too. Salads like lettuce and cucumber will save you money as will stuff like cabbages and cauliflower. Another site you'll need is http://www.allotment-garden.org/recipe/ for all the glut of veg you'll have.

Quite so and it is as well to mention that salad leaves and radishes etc can very easily be grown in-and-among the existing plants in your garden as quick-growing catch-crops, i.e. they germinate, grow, leaf-up and are harvested and eaten long before any other plant needs the space where you sowed them.
Plus beetroot, beans, peas, carrots etc don't always have to be planted in regimented monocultured rows and do look very decorative in the gaps amongst flowers, especially in a cottage-garden style setting but also in more formal borders.

I wish radishes were easy. In two years, with countless sowings, I've yet to harvest a single one.

Good for you !
It is amazing to be walking past a town-centre flower bed and suddenly notice trusses of lovely-looking tomatoes at the back of the bed ... and then start to notice everything else that is in there.

Traffic islands, for example, must amount to thousands of acres costing goodness-knows how much to maintain that, if handed-over, would be maintained for free by keen and hungry veggie growers.

Thank you, El B.