Grow Your Own
Supermarket food creates a lot of greenhouse gases through agricultural practices, transport, packaging and waste. Growing your own not only means you can choose to grow organically, but also massively reduces these emissions. Even if you have not got a large plot, you can always grow small crops like salads or herbs in pots or planters. You can even help pollinators too as many crops are also food sources for them.
- Choose what you want to grow. You may be trying to reduce your food bill, add a greater variety of flavours to your cooking or just want to be able to pick fresh food from your garden, so think about what you are trying to achieve.
- Think about what space you have. You could use a sunny wall to grow sun-loving crops like tomatoes and cucumbers, and a partly shady spot for leafy greens or starting off seedlings. More shady spots can be used for storage, water butts or compost bins.
- Start small and just try a couple of different crops like cut-and-come-again salads, beans and tomatoes.
- Prevent gluts by sowing a few seeds every couple of weeks. If you do end up with more than you can eat some can be harvested as required e.g. carrots, some can be harvested and stored in a cool place e.g. apples, others can be frozen e.g, berries.
- Include some fruit bushes like redcurrant or gooseberry in your plot. They are usually very productive and save you money as fruit can be very expensive. Remember that you will need to cover them once they start to ripen or the birds will take them (but a clean old net curtain is just as good as a net.)
- Add an apple or plum tree. They are great for pollinators, carbon capture and providing food. They can also be trained against a fence or wall if space is limited. Leave fallen fruit on the ground as it can be a useful food source for garden wildlife.
- Use everything you grow. If you have a glut you can freeze many crops such as beans or berries. Alternatively offer them to friends and neighbours.