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Where to buy seeds and why I love seed swaps
Legal brown paper envelopes: home saved seeds (left) and some I got from a seed swap last year (right) If you are growing in a small space you may be wondering where to get your seeds this season....
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Where to find seeds pt 2 – exotic, heritage, on-line & local
Heritage blue and white beans - these remind me of precious birds eggs. Long, dark evenings are the perfect time of year to plan your growing and order seeds. Last week I shared my enthusiasm for...
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Six fun container veg to grow
Fennel fronds add contrast to the foliage in a container vegetable garden. Do you enjoy trying new crops and varieties? Have you discovered anything recently that you’d be happy to share? I’m always...
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Edible Beauty: great looking crops for pots
This is a version of a post first published in Fennel and Fern If you only have a small space to grow food in, you’ll probably be keen that it’s productive and looks good. In the past it was common to...
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Salad leaf mixes for every season
Here’s a piece I first wrote for City Planter Salads are amongst the most productive and worthwhile crops for growing in small spaces. They don’t need big containers, will thrive in shadier spots and...
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From radish flowers to huge tomatoes: 6 quick container growing tips
If you like information in bite sized chunks, check out Vertical Veg on Facebook, where I’ve started daily (well, almost daily!) tips. If you want to receive these in your Facebook news feed, simply...
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Magic beans! How to grow runners successfully
Runner beans were originally grown in the UK as an ornamental - the flowers look great Runner beans are one of the most productive and pretty crops for small spaces. Here are some tips for growing...
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What can you sow in July?
Chard is a good veg to sow now – the coloured varieties are really pretty and you can eat the small leaves in salads or cook the larger leaves Some of you have been in touch recently to ask ‘can you...
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How to grow pea shoots
Pea shoots are great for small spaces – they grow fast, taste delicious and don’t need much sun. Easy to grow, they’re also perfect to try if you’re starting out. Seeing (and eating!) the fruits of...
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Ten great crops to grow in containers
When growing in small spaces, you want a lot from the crops you grow. You want them to give you plenty to eat, to taste amazing, and ideally to look great, too. After experimenting with over fifty...
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What you can grow in shady spaces
Lack of sun is one of the most common challenges you can face growing in a city. Surrounding buildings, walls, pylons and trees, can all conspire to cast shade on your growing space for much (or even...
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Eight of the best herbs for containers
Herbs are wonderful for containers. Few crops give you so much from so little space. Often just a few leaves can transform a dish. Many also have flowers that attract beneficial insects – bees love...
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Six ways to grow more tomatoes in containers
Tomatoes are the perfect crop for small spaces: rewarding, productive and delicious. Few people know more about growing tomatoes in containers than Nick Chenhall, tomato enthusiast and the man behind...
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How to grow delicious fava bean shoots
It’s not very well known, but one of the fastest, most productive and tastiest crops to grow in containers is fava bean shoots. They’re super easy to grow, too. The shoots have a delicious fresh bean...
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Eight crops that are easy to grow, hard to buy
When you’re growing in a small space, you want everything you grow to be special in some way. It might be beautiful, delicious, attractive to wildlife, or highly productive (ideally several of these!)....
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49 ways to use mint (and how to grow it in containers)
How would you use a surplus of mint? I asked the question on the Vertical Veg Facebook page. More people responded than ever – and with so many delicious, fun and creative ideas. Here are some of the...
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How to grow oyster mushrooms at home
Have you ever wondered if there’s an easy way to grow mushrooms at home – without needing to buy a new kit each time? To find out, I went to visit mushroom expert, Ivan Lucas, who runs Mushroom Box....
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How to Grow Chillies in Containers
Chillies grow very well in containers – but they do have some specific needs. To discover the ‘tricks of the trade’, I met up with (and filmed) professional chilli grower, Steve Waters. Few other...
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The easy way to grow lemon grass in containers
When you start to grow your own food, a nice surprise is that some ‘exotic’ plants turn out to be easier to grow than you might expect. Lemon grass is one. A few years ago, I thought this only grew in...
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Mint for life… (the secret of keeping supermarket mint alive)
If you’ve tried growing a pot of supermarket mint, you might have discovered that it usually looks sad and dies after a few weeks. (At least, that is what happened to my first attempts!). But did you...
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