This summer we had the wonderful opportunity to grow our own fruit and veg at home in England. It’s lovely to be able to see the results of hard work and effort at the end, at harvest time!
This year rather than growing in the ground in the garden, we wanted to try growing in pots only – especially as we could place our pots on the patio which is easily visible from the living room, which also means we are highly unlikely to neglect the plants. As we were limited to 3 months of growing between June – August, we decided to buy some pot plants and grow some from seed. Whilst I wasn’t certain if we would stay in time to see the harvest, I did opt for growing exactly what we would need to make our own garden salad by the end! Here’s what we did…
Grow from Seed / Buy a plant
We bought the Verve Fruit and Veg Seed collection from B and Q. It worked out a lot cheaper than buying individual seed packets – unless of course you plan to grow in the plenty (although there were plenty of seeds in this pack too)
We also bought a tomato and strawberry plant from B and Q’s garden, with a few flowers on each, so we could also see the process of flowering to fruit along side growing from seed. Having these plants amongst our own grown from seed meant that we could compare plants and have hope that ours would also grow so tall one day!
What you need?
I would highly advise buying a few BIG garden pots, (We bought ours from B & M) as we had to re-pot our courgette plant a few times. Other than that, the kids will love filling it up with soil, with their hands or buckets!
We sowed all the seeds on the same day. All it requires is having enough soil, small pots and knowing where to place each pot at the end. Some seeds are sown indoors on window sills while others outside. As we waited for our shoots to emerge, we began finding out more about seeds and planting. We loved the book, “It all starts with a seed…how food grows.”
Caring for your Plants
We watered the plants in the morning on cooler days and in the evening too on warmer sunny days – especially as the plants started growing some more! I’d also recommend snipping off any yellowing leaves and cutting off most of the leaves at the bottom of a tomato to ensure the tomatoes grow well. More on pruning a Tomato plant here. We were very successful with growing courgettes this year. We learnt so much about courgette flowers, we even ate a few and enjoyed eating our organic courgettes in the end.
The Harvest
To make our Gardening project a little more special, I planned on us being able to use our harvest by the end by making our own organic salad. So with this in mind, I decided on what I actually wanted to grow or have in our salad, including: cherry tomatoes (B&Q Plant), carrots (B&Q Plant), kale, spring onions, lettuce and beetroot leaves – all grown from seed. Its nice to be able to grow your own and eat your own, but also share with others too – so anything grown would make wonderful gifts for family and friends. Did you grow your own this summer? Have you harvested all your fruit and veg now? Share with us in the comments below!
Growing in Saudi Arabia
We loved our gardening project so much that we are attempting to grow our own herbs at least, in Saudi Arabia! We’re already taking care of a basil plant we bought, and we just planted some red pepper seed (taken out of a red pepper) the shoots have emerged as we water it daily on our window sill! Have you tried growing your own plants in Saudi Arabia? Share with us below!
For more tips and general ideas on gardening, we loved learning from Gardening Addict @grow_with_joe.
