Getting started

Choosing what to grow is really about choosing what you want to eat but this isn’t as simple as it may seem.

As with many things, growing is full of received wisdoms and accepted ‘truths’, most of which tend to limit rather than inspire. Ask anyone who grows their own food or is thinking of starting how they go about their planning and almost all will show you a picture of their plot, split into four equal parts, each assigned to ‘potatoes’,‘peas and beans’,‘brassicas’ and ‘roots and onions’. Salads and any others that don’t fit those groups will be squeezed in where space allows, and any fruit will be grown elsewhere. This isn’t a random occurrence; it results from most books urging us to think about plants and plant groups too early on, assuming that we want to grow most of what we eat.