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home grown
dig up the garden
If you have a large garden, seal off an area that you would like to use as a vegetable patch. Don't be too ambitious at first - you can always add more garden if you need to later on. Consider the best location for your vegetable patch - you're looking for lots of light, so avoid shaded areas. You'll need a spade to dig a patch and once you've cleared the grass, you'll need to break up the soil to make it as light and suitable as possible for growing.
smaller gardens
If you don't have a large garden, don't despair. Square foot gardens are popular and can be dug with a trowel. If you'd like to grow many different plants in your square foot garden take eight bamboo rods and tie four together to make a square. Criss cross the other four rods to make smaller squares - you'll now have 12 tiny squares in which to grow vegetables and herbs of your choice.
borrow space
If you don't want to dig up a vegetable plot, you could find space for the odd vegetable plant in gaps between existing plants. Don't worry, they won't mind!
no space outdoors?
If you don't have a garden or you live in an apartment there are other options availble to get growing.
- Try growing fruit or veg in a small pot
- Sow herbs in a window box on your windowledge
- Buy a growbag from a garden centre for your balcony or backyard
start small. gardening or rather digging can be sore on the lower back when not used to physical work. instead of cramming flower beds with bedding plants, which are over priced and have travelled for hundreds of miles, keep space weed free, until you have some veg plants to grow.talk to relatives and friends, share seeds or bring on particular plants and swap. say one grow lettuce seedlings and someone else can start beetroot. buy good quality seeds that havee at least the following year sell by date. some herb packets contain 1500 to 2000 tiny seeds, sow sparingly. in the case of lettuce it is a good idea to buy mixed varities to cut and grow again. sow lettuce every 2 weeks to have a successional crop all summer long. plants such as broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts and herbs can be bought very cheaply and in small amounts to suit you. good luck to all, i have a full time job, and have been growing fruit and veg for years. part of my aim is to help and physically show others how easy it is to get growing.evelyn
We have seed sprouting ongoing on the kitchen counter.
It does not require full light infact they don't do well with too much light.
It can provide a year round supply of sprouts with plenty of variety
It is just a matter of days between soaking and being able to harvest and eat the sprouts.
In the English Market in Cork the seed sprouts that are available are expensive and imported from Holland so they have an unneccessary carbon footprint.
Health food shops can sell you a sprouting kit that is compact.
rossinver organic centre for seeds and advice. mr middleton garden shop mary st dublin sells seeds sprouts.