Grow for it - it's a brave new world

Vegetable growing is for old people. They've got the time and patience to put up with bad backs, slugs and potato blight.

Until a year ago this was my theory and I was sticking to it.

Besides, a small, shady back-yard garden attached to an average suburban semi was no place for growbags.

Oh, how I had to eat my words - quite literally. I've turned my patient other half into a composting widower and 100 sq ft of lawn into a thriving display of salad leaves, broad beans and courgettes, to name a few. And I love it!

The idea of "having a go" popped into my head at Christmas time last year, when I received the RHS book Grow Your Own Veg as a pressie. And by then, having moved from town house to village property with a bigger garden, it seemed only right to at least give things a go.

There was an odd patch of sloping lawn to one side of the garden, which served no purpose and looked really untidy.

A week's holiday from work and around £100 later, two of us had created a 10 ft square of bare, weed-free soil surrounded by a primitive wooden frame construction, stepped to create three levels.

A pile of bricks discarded down the side of the garage was used to lay a makeshift path up the middle of the plot, making each area easy to get to.

So - what to grow?

My book recommended trying more unusual veg - stuff you can't get in Tesco, but probably can in Waitrose at a price.

My seed choices included carrots, peas, broad beans, runner beans, vine tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins and salad leaves.

I also braved the more exotic with asparagus and globe artichokes.

The £100 spent included several packs of seeds, three giant bags of compost and cheap propagation trays.

With no greenhouse to raise my "babies" in, the seedlings took up quite a bit of window space for a while in early spring until it was time to plant out.

Now, as any seasoned grower will tell you, there will be problems, there will be failures, and some veggies just won't grow in our bonkers UK climate.

So I knew there were risks - the microscopic carrot fly could devastate the growing roots, slugs would demolish young shoots and too much rain could rot otherwise healthy crops.

As it turns out, I've done pretty well for a first-timer.

Okay, my spinach went to seed, and I didn't grow enought broad beans to fill a saucer, but otherwise I've been jolly successful.

I went against all advice and chitted my own supermarket potatoes that had turned green, to produce a buried treasure of delicious "earlies".

I've got healthy plants grown from bought peppers and pumpkins which will be ready in later summer, and I'm patiently waiting for the vine tomatoes to redden.

But veg growing has brought other surprises apart from tasty crops.

I reckon I've saved about £4 to £5 a week on bags of salad, and I've grown about eight quid's worth of spuds. Not bad considering I really didn't get into it to save money.

More importantly to me, though, it is therapy. Growing your own is both relaxing and rewarding.

And a composting bin for my brithday this summer (thanks, Dad) is the latest garden addition. It gets anything organic chucked in it.

I wonder if the council will recompense me for how little they're having to empty the dustbin?

No, I don't think so either.

By Debbie Bennett