Grow your own vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers
and keeping chickens, hens, ducks, geese and turkeys
Growing your own has many benefits, besides producing delicious, fresh, home-grown produce tasting far superior to anything you can buy from the supermarket.
It's an activity the whole family can take part in, providing a free source of exercise (more interesting than pounding the exercise bike!) and teaching the next generation that a carrot comes out of the ground not from a shop. For us adults it provides a way of unwinding and relaxing at the end of the day or at the weekend enabling us to “forget our cares” and recharge our batteries.
Don't forget that the purpose of growing your own is to provide you with things you like to eat. The best way to get started is to think of the six most popular vegetables your family enjoy or the herbs you use most and start by concentrating on growing these for the first year. Remember to plan to grow them in the proportions you like to eat, for example if your family eat lots of brocolli, grow more of that than cauliflower which they eat less of.
If you don't have a garden you can still grow your own. Many plants grow well in pots, tubs, window boxes or windowcills, particularly herbs and salad crops.
Our extensive database not only covers fruit and vegetables, it also gives details on flowers and livestock.
You can search by category, letter, generic name, common name, height, colour, planting month or season month. You can also search by keyword. For example, January, which will give you details of what jobs need to be done in the garden during January plus what crops will be ready for harvesting.
Whether you are a novice gardener or an expert looking for extra details, we hope you find what you are looking for on our website.
Happy gardening!
