Grow Something You Can Eat—even If You Don't Have a Garden
Grow Something You Can Eat—even If You Don't Have a Garden
You Don't Need to Become Self-Sufficient. Start by Growing Lunch.
There is something slightly strange about modern food.
We can walk into a supermarket in January and buy strawberries. We can buy tomatoes almost every day of the year. Basil comes in little plastic packets, salad leaves arrive washed and ready to eat, and potatoes appear in bags without any obvious connection to the soil they once grew in.
Food has become extraordinarily convenient.
Perhaps it has also become slightly invisible.
We see the finished product, but very little of what happened before it reached us.
So here is one of the simplest Going Green challenges I can suggest:
Grow something you can eat.
Not enough to feed your family for the year.
Not enough to become self-sufficient.
Not even enough to save a significant amount of money.
Just grow something.
A pot of basil on a windowsill.
A container of salad leaves by the back door.
A few tomato plants on a balcony.
Strawberries in a hanging basket.
Microgreens on the kitchen windowsill.
Or, if you have caught the bug, perhaps eventually a small vegetable bed or allotment.
Because the environmental benefit of growing a few tomatoes may be fairly modest.
The educational benefit can be enormous.
Start Ridiculously Small
One of the reasons people sometimes dismiss growing food is because they imagine an allotment.
Rows of potatoes.
Bean poles.
Greenhouses.
Compost heaps.
Wheelbarrows.
Hours of digging.
It does not have to start like that.
In fact, I think starting small may be much more sensible.
Try growing one thing successfully before turning half the garden over to vegetables.
A sunny windowsill can be enough.
So can a balcony, doorstep, patio or small courtyard.
Even someone living several floors above the ground may be able to grow something edible.
The objective is not:
"How much food can I produce?"
A much better first question is:
"Can I grow one thing that I can actually eat?"
That changes the scale of the challenge completely.
1. Herbs: Probably the Easiest Place to Begin
Herbs are an obvious starting point because many of them are happy growing in relatively small containers.
Try:
basil;
parsley;
chives;
coriander;
mint;
thyme;
rosemary.
Some are easier than others, and their requirements are different.
Basil generally likes warmth and light.
Mint is vigorous enough that you may eventually wonder whether you are growing mint or whether the mint is growing you.
Rosemary and thyme tend to prefer free-draining conditions and do not want permanently waterlogged soil.
The great advantage of herbs is that you can actually use them.
You may only pick a handful of leaves, but suddenly dinner contains something you grew yourself.
That is surprisingly satisfying.
It may also reduce the number of partly used packets of supermarket herbs that eventually end up in the bin.
2. Salad Leaves: Fast Food in the Best Possible Sense
If you want relatively quick results, salad leaves are worth trying.
Many can be grown in trays, containers or window boxes.
You do not necessarily have to wait for a complete lettuce to form.
Some varieties can be grown on a "cut and come again" basis, where you harvest younger leaves and allow the plant to continue producing.
Rocket, spinach and mixed salad leaves can all be possibilities depending on the conditions and time of year.
And this introduces one of the first useful lessons of growing food:
Plants do not operate according to our shopping habits.
They grow according to:
temperature;
light;
water;
soil;
season;
weather.
That sounds obvious.
But when almost every food seems to be available almost every day of the year, it is surprisingly easy to forget.
3. Tomatoes: A Little More Effort, but Hugely Rewarding
Tomatoes are wonderful plants for demonstrating how food develops.
A small seed becomes a plant.
The plant produces flowers.
The flowers are pollinated.
Tiny green fruits appear.
Those fruits gradually swell.
Eventually they ripen.
Watching that process makes the tomato sitting in a supermarket punnet seem rather less ordinary.
Tomatoes can be grown in pots, grow bags and containers, although they need adequate sunlight, feeding and regular watering.
There are also varieties intended for smaller spaces, including compact bush and patio tomatoes.
One lesson quickly becomes obvious:
Tomatoes are mostly water.
Miss watering a container on a hot day and the plant can tell you fairly rapidly.
That leads to a much wider environmental question.
Where does the water used to grow our food come from?
How much irrigation does agriculture require?
How vulnerable is food production to drought?
Suddenly a watering can on the patio becomes part of a much bigger story.
4. Strawberries: Food Doesn't Have to Grow in Rows
Strawberries are particularly useful if space is limited.
They can grow in:
pots;
window boxes;
hanging baskets;
raised containers.
They are also an excellent reminder that food production is shared with wildlife.
You may discover that birds, slugs, snails and insects are interested in your strawberries too.
Your first beautifully ripe strawberry may disappear shortly before you planned to eat it.
It is irritating.
But it is also educational.
We sometimes talk about farming as though humans are the only creatures involved.
Grow food yourself and you quickly discover that you are participating in an ecosystem.
5. Microgreens: Growing Food on a Windowsill
For people with almost no outside space, microgreens may be one of the easiest experiments.
These are young edible seedlings harvested shortly after germination.
Depending on what you grow, possibilities include:
radish;
mustard;
peas;
broccoli;
rocket.
They can often be grown in shallow trays indoors.
Because they are harvested young, the time between planting and eating can be short.
That makes them particularly satisfying for children as well.
You plant something.
Something happens.
And before too long, you can eat the result.
It is gardening compressed into a relatively small space and timescale.
The Great Supermarket Illusion
One of the biggest benefits of growing even a little food is discovering how difficult food production actually is.
Imagine that you planted twelve lettuce seeds.
Perhaps ten germinated.
A few seedlings became weak.
Slugs ate two.
One dried out because you forgot to water it.
Another failed for reasons you never quite identified.
Eventually you harvested four good lettuces.
Now walk into a supermarket.
There are hundreds of almost identical lettuces sitting neatly on display.
That suddenly becomes rather impressive.
Somebody had to grow them.
Someone prepared the soil.
Someone planted or transplanted them.
They were watered.
They were protected from pests and disease.
They were harvested.
Sorted.
Packed.
Transported.
Refrigerated.
Displayed.
And after all of that, we may buy one, eat half of it and throw the remainder away.
Once you have struggled to grow a lettuce yourself, wasting one somehow feels different.
Growing Food Makes Seasons Real Again
Our supermarkets have largely disconnected food from seasons.
Modern agriculture and global transport mean that foods can be brought from different parts of the world when they are not naturally available here.
That is an extraordinary achievement.
But it can also make us forget that food has seasons.
Grow strawberries and you begin to understand why British strawberries traditionally belong to summer.
Grow tomatoes and you see how dependent they are on warmth and light.
Grow herbs outdoors and you watch them respond to changing weather.
This does not mean we should stop importing food.
International agriculture is complicated, and food miles alone do not tell us everything about environmental impact.
But simply understanding seasonality can influence our choices.
You may begin looking at the label.
Where did this come from?
Was it grown locally?
Is it normally in season?
Has it travelled halfway around the world?
The objective is not to feel guilty about every supermarket purchase.
It is simply to become more curious.
You Begin to Notice Soil
Most of us rarely think about soil.
Yet enormous parts of human civilisation ultimately depend upon a relatively thin layer of fertile material covering sections of the Earth's surface.
Grow something and soil suddenly matters.
Is it too dry?
Too wet?
Too compacted?
Does it drain properly?
Does it contain enough organic material?
You begin to understand why compost matters.
Why worms matter.
Why soil structure matters.
Why constantly degrading agricultural soil would be a serious problem.
You may start composting kitchen and garden waste.
Then another connection appears.
Vegetable peelings and plant material that once looked like rubbish can become material capable of helping grow the next generation of plants.
That is a rather elegant cycle.
Then You Start Thinking About Water
Watering plants makes water consumption visible.
A garden hose can deliver a surprising amount of water.
Containers can dry rapidly during hot weather.
That raises useful questions.
Could some rainwater be collected?
Could watering take place early in the morning or evening when evaporation is lower?
Does every plant need the same amount?
Could mulch reduce evaporation?
Could a larger container retain moisture better than a tiny pot?
These are tiny decisions.
But they teach an important environmental principle:
Resources work better when we understand how they are being used.
Your First Crop May Be Financially Ridiculous
There is another point worth making.
Do not assume home-grown food will automatically save money.
Your first tomato crop might involve buying:
pots;
compost;
seeds;
plant food;
canes;
watering equipment.
You may end up producing six tomatoes at an effective cost that would make a supermarket tomato look like the bargain of the century.
That does not mean the exercise was pointless.
You are purchasing more than tomatoes.
You are learning.
And equipment can be reused.
Seeds can sometimes be saved.
Compost can be created.
Containers can be repurposed.
Experience improves.
Over time, some crops may genuinely become economical.
Herbs are a particularly good example because supermarket herb packets can be relatively expensive and are often partly wasted.
But I would not begin with the promise:
"Grow your own food and save a fortune."
Sometimes you will.
Sometimes you won't.
That is not the main reason for doing it.
Children Should See Food Growing
One of the greatest reasons for growing something edible may have little to do with carbon calculations.
Children should have the opportunity to see where food comes from.
Pulling a carrot from the soil is different from taking one out of a plastic bag.
Digging for potatoes is almost like finding buried treasure.
Watching beans climb a cane makes plant growth tangible.
Opening a pea pod and eating peas directly from it connects biology with dinner.
It creates questions.
Why do plants need light?
Why do roots grow downwards?
Why are flowers important?
Where do seeds come from?
Why are bees visiting the flowers?
Why did one plant grow better than another?
A small vegetable container can become a science experiment lasting all summer.
Growing Food Also Means Learning to Fail
Gardening is wonderfully good at reminding us that we are not completely in control.
Seeds fail to germinate.
Plants get eaten.
Tomatoes split.
Courgettes grow beautifully one year and miserably the next.
Weather changes.
Pests arrive.
You go away for three hot days and return to plants that look as though they have spent the weekend in the Sahara.
This may actually be one of the most useful lessons.
Modern life often hides failure.
Products arrive finished.
Food arrives graded.
We rarely see the unsuccessful examples.
Growing something reminds us that biological systems are variable.
There is something valuable about that.
You learn.
You adjust.
And you try again.
What If You Really Don't Have Any Space?
Then start with the windowsill.
If that works, look for alternatives.
Some communities have:
allotments;
community gardens;
shared growing spaces;
gardening clubs;
school gardens;
volunteer growing projects.
Allotments can be wonderful, but do not underestimate the commitment.
A full allotment can require substantial time, particularly during spring and summer.
So again, starting small makes sense.
You do not need half an acre.
You need one successful plant.
A Simple Going Green Challenge
Try this.
Over the next few weeks, grow one thing you can eat.
Choose something appropriate for your available space.
It might be:
On a windowsill:
Basil, chives or microgreens.
On a balcony:
Herbs, salad leaves, strawberries or compact tomatoes.
On a patio:
Tomatoes, potatoes in containers, beans, courgettes or salad crops.
In a small garden:
Add a raised bed or dedicate a small patch to vegetables.
If you become seriously interested:
Investigate an allotment or community garden.
Keep it small enough that failure does not matter.
And when you finally harvest something, use it in a meal.
Grow lunch.
Is This Really Going to Save the Planet?
No.
A pot of basil will not solve climate change.
Six home-grown tomatoes will not transform global agriculture.
And it is worth being cautious about environmental claims.
Commercial agriculture can be extremely efficient. Growing something inefficiently at home using heated greenhouses, excessive water, newly purchased plastic equipment and specialist materials is not automatically environmentally superior.
That is not really the point.
The bigger benefit is the change in understanding.
Once you have grown food, you may be more likely to:
respect seasonal produce;
waste less food;
compost;
understand water use;
notice pollinators;
appreciate healthy soil;
choose food more thoughtfully;
understand why weather matters to farmers;
realise just how much effort lies behind cheap food.
That change in behaviour could matter far more than the handful of vegetables themselves.
Perhaps Going Green Begins with Understanding
One of the themes running through this Going Green series is that environmental improvement does not always mean purchasing expensive technology.
Sometimes it means understanding the systems we already depend upon.
Food is one of the biggest.
Every one of us depends upon agriculture.
Yet most of us can live almost completely separated from it.
Growing something edible closes that gap just a little.
You begin with a seed.
You add soil, water, light and patience.
Eventually something appears that you can actually put on your plate.
And suddenly a tomato is not merely something that costs £1.50 in a supermarket.
It is sunlight, water, nutrients, time, pollination, weather and human effort.
That is worth understanding.
So don't worry about becoming self-sufficient.
Don't dig up the lawn tomorrow.
Don't order a greenhouse.
Start with one pot.
Plant something.
Look after it.
And eventually, eat it.
You don't need to become self-sufficient. Start by growing lunch.
Comments
Post a Comment