Growing Our Own Food

Growing Our Own Food

I never set out to become someone who grows their own food. It just sort of happened. One spring I bought a small packet of lettuce seeds because they were cheap and I was fed up paying for bags of leaves that went brown in the fridge. I did not expect much from it. I pushed the seeds into an old plastic tray of compost and left it on the windowsill, half thinking nothing would come of it.

A week later tiny green shoots appeared. I remember leaning closer to check I was not imagining it. Something about those fragile threads made me oddly proud. It was only lettuce, nothing impressive, yet it felt different from buying it. I had waited for it. I had watered it. I had watched it push through the soil on its own.

You do not need a huge garden to grow food. I certainly do not have one. A few pots will do. Herbs are the easiest place to begin. Basil if you have light. Parsley if you do not. Mint grows like it owns the place, so keep it contained or it will creep everywhere. Snipping fresh herbs into dinner makes even simple food feel better. It tastes fresher, sharper, like it has not travelled halfway across the country.

Potatoes were my next experiment. I read that you could grow them in sacks, which sounded unlikely. I rolled down the sides of a compost bag, filled the bottom, dropped in a few seed potatoes and covered them. As the green shoots grew, I added more compost. It felt a bit like building something layer by layer without really knowing if it would work.

The day I tipped the sack out and saw actual potatoes tumble onto the ground was a good day. They were not perfect. Some were small, some were knobbly. I did not care. They went straight into the kitchen and tasted better than any I had bought that month.

Tomatoes are worth the effort if you can give them light. The smell of the leaves stays on your hands after you tie them up. It is sharp and clean. Shop tomatoes often look good but taste of nothing. Homegrown ones are warm and slightly uneven. You end up eating one before you even get back inside.

Not everything works. Slugs have wiped out more than one hopeful planting. One year my courgettes produced nothing but leaves. Another year everything bolted at once and ran to seed as if it had somewhere better to be. Growing food has a way of reminding you that you are not fully in control. Weather changes its mind. So does soil.

I have started saving seeds when I can. Drying a few from a pepper or letting a plant flower properly before collecting what it leaves behind. There is something satisfying about that. It costs nothing. It feels sensible. Like you are paying attention.

Even scraps get a second look now. Spring onions regrow if you stand the roots in water. Lettuce bases will surprise you with new leaves. It becomes a habit. Before throwing something away you pause and think, could this grow again.

Water is another lesson. I put a simple water butt outside to catch rain from the drainpipe. It fills quicker than you expect in a proper downpour. Using that water on dry evenings feels practical and right. You notice more when you are watering your own plants. The way soil darkens. The smell that rises up.

There is also something quietly comforting about the rhythm of it. Sowing when the air is still cold. Waiting. Checking every morning for signs of life. Harvesting in summer when everything seems to move faster. Clearing tired plants away in autumn and starting again with compost made from the year before.

Growing your own food will not make you self sufficient overnight. It will not solve everything. What it does is shift your thinking. Food stops being just something on a shelf. It becomes something that takes time. Something that needs care.

A few pots of herbs. A sack of potatoes. A tomato plant tied carefully to a stick. It does not look like much from the outside. Yet when you sit down to eat something you have grown yourself, even a small thing, it feels steadier somehow. You planted it. You waited. And it answered back.