How to Grow Your Own Vegetables

Now that we need to eat 10 portions of fruit and veg per day, why not save lots of money by growing your own fruit and vegetables. Top tips for what to plant and when, and how to get a bumper crop every year.

With all of this climate change going on causing floods and other untold effects on farming, the price of fruit and vegetables has started to rise. Farmers are investing more in growing biofuels as they are more profitable.

The advantages of being outdoors looking after your own vegetable plot are numerous…

During the World Wars, people in Britain and America were actively encouraged to grow their own fruit and vegetables as part of the war effort. With food being rationed to ensure that it didn’t run out, the tending of an allotment or vegetable plot became a daily outdoor activity. This also allowed the government to save money by concentrating its efforts on supplying the troops. Since then, growing your own fruit and vegetables had fallen into decline, until it was recently revived by the attention being paid to being environmentally friendly.

So, why should you bother with growing your own vegetables? The main benefits are:

• The vegetables are fresher than from the shops and taste better
• It is convenient – just dig up your vegetables when you need them
• It is healthy by giving you exercise being active outdoors
• It is significantly cheaper than buying fruit and vegetables from a shop

There are a wide range of fruit and vegetable that you can grow yourself. The BBC Gardening website has a wonderful section on how to grow your own fruit and vegetables.BBC Gardening Grow Your Own Fruit and Vegetables

If you don’t have space in your own garden, you can ask to use part of a relative’s or friend’s garden. Alternatively you could rent an allotment. Details about allotments can be found at http://www.allotment.org.uk. Some schools have set up their own gardens for each class to maintain. This is a fantastic way to get youth interested in gardening, as well as getting them active outdoors. Some grow flowers, whilst other grow an amazing array of fruit and vegatables.

People often want to know what fruit and vegetables to grow month by month. The RHS has a website that tells you all about growing vegetables including a month by month guide as to what veg to plant and what you can harvest. The Grow Your Own Veg site coincides with the BBC and RHS TV series Grow your own VEG and a book of the same name.

What vegetables to plant when month by month

If you want to know what vegetables to plant now, or in what month to plant vegetables, this list indicates when to plant your vegetables. The brown cells show when to plant your vegetables. The green cells show when to harvest your vegetables.

Crop

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Asparagus

Aubergines

Beetroot

Broad Beans

Brocolli

Brussels Sprouts

Cabbage

Carrots

Cauliflower

Celery

Chili Pepper

Courgettes

Cucumber

French Beans

Garlic

Kale

Leeks

Lettuce

Marrows

Melons

Onions

Parsnips

Peas

Peppers

Potatoes

Pumpkins

Radish

Rhubarb

Runner Beans

Shallots

Spinach

Spring Onions

Squashes

Swede

Sweetcorn

Tomatoes

Turnips

Fruit

There is plenty of fruit your can grow in your garden. You can begin growing these from seed, but these are best started by buying young plants.

• Apples
• Blackberries
• Blackcurrants
• Cherries
• Gooseberries
• Grapes
• Nectarines
• Peaches
• Pears
• Plums
• Raspberries
• Redcurrants

There are also plenty of herbs that you can plant indoors or outdoors and harvest all year round.

If you want a detailed step by step guide with instructions on how to grow each type of vegetable, visit www.gardenaction.co.uk

So, why not start digging now, and grow your own vegetables. You can have a competition with your mates to see who can grow the biggest veg. You could perhaps grow your own pumpkin ready for Halloween.

For more ideas on growing things in your garden, visit our page on Gardening Fun.