Growing your own

Grow veg to save money and reduce food miles

- Val Bourne

ONE of the greenest things you can do is to grow your own food, because there are no food miles involved. The food is super-fresh and vitamin-rich. It helps the budget as well and this seems especially important at the moment, because the price of food has rocketed. I’m glad that roughly one-third of our garden is put down to fruit and vegetables, although I have to admit I would have liked to fill it all with flowers. The Best Beloved insisted, quite rightly, so we’re able to harvest fresh vegetables and salads, and pick soft fruit.

We are fortunate to have an allotment within walking distance as well, although it’s harder pushing the wheelbarrow up the hill than it is on the way back. Not everyone’s so lucky, I know, but you can still grow some vegetables in smaller plots to help the family budget. Growing your own is fun and you learn to eat seasonally. There isn’t any asparagus flown in from Peru here and I only buy English strawberries. They’re both grown in the Vale of Evesham, 30 miles away.