With spring in full swing Sophie Farrah steps into the garden to get the lowdown on growing your own
Ready, steady, grow
If you fancy digging up your own dinner, check out Rocket Gardens: a one-stop shop for a thriving veg patch. Simply choose what you’d like to grow and staff will deliver a box full of plug plants ready to go straight into the soil.
The Family Favourites Spring Veg Patch is perfect for planting this month and contains loads of popular veggies – carrots, tomatoes, courgettes and more – that can be roasted or made into a quick pasta sauce. Or, if you’re pushed for space, the handy Urban Veg Patch is easy to grow in a medley of pots, containers and growbags.
The crop of Clapham
To get your hands dirty, but not necessarily in your own back garden, head to Clapham Common for Bandstand Beds: a lovely community garden tended to by dedicated volunteers and open to anyone keen to get outside, grow vegetables and have a good time.
Here you can enjoy weekly gardening sessions, as well as picnics and laid-back lunches – just email to say that you are coming. This month Bandstand Beds will be planting its signature pumpkins, squashes and courgettes.
The great indoors
No garden? No problem, thanks to IKEA’s indoor growing system. Its VÄXER range has everything you need to grow fresh veg and herbs indoors all year round – no matter the weather – and in stylish little containers to boot.
The method, hydroponic cultivation, involves growing in water instead of soil and is similar to the system used by Growing Underground – an ‘urban farm’ hidden in tunnels beneath the streets of Clapham that supplies super fresh micro greens and salad leaves to some of London’s top restaurants. Its produce is also available to buy in Whole Foods, Planet Organic, M&S and Ocado.
Foraged feasts
Chris Lacey ©National Trust Images/Chris Lac
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Fancy a taste of freshly grown goodness without putting in the hard work? Dating back at least as far as 1653, the kitchen garden at Ham House is currently one of the most productive walled kitchen gardens in London, providing the onsite Orangery Café with produce all year round.
At The Botanical in Kew Gardens, meanwhile, the menu features herbs, plants and flowers grown within the RBG walls. This month the chefs will forage wild garlic, chervil, wild nettle and more.
And if it’s ingredients you want, Fulham Palace is for you. A truly beautiful walled garden produces a plethora of delicious organic fruit and veg, much of which can be purchased at a charming, volunteer-run ‘market barrow’ parked up amongst the patches. All sale proceeds are ploughed back into the garden itself.
Got vines?
Make wine. Seriously! Take your homegrown grapes to The Urban Wine Company’s annual September harvest in Battersea and, come the spring, you’ll be rewarded with a bottle or two of its superb rosé, Château Tooting.
If you have no vines, fear not – you can buy a bottle of South London’s finest online or enjoy a glass at Tooting pub The Selkirk, wine bar Unwined in Tooting or Lamberts Restaurant in Balham.
Check out our Food Section for more tasty local morsels
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