No matter how large or small your garden if you love food, cooking and growing things what can be better than growing your own fresh Veg, Herbs and Fruit. You can grow a lot in POTS. Carefully select the varieties to grow to maximize the quality, flavours and yield and of course only grow the things you really like. Here are some tried and tested varieties to try.
To grow potatoes in pots you will need a 45cm tub or barrel for 3 tubers to produce a good crop of delicious new potatoes. The recommended variety to use is Rocket. Put about 15cms of compost in the bottom of the barrel and the potatoes on top. Cover with compost and continue to add compost as the foliage grows until the barrel is full. Feed with fertilizer and keep watered. Harvest in June.
Come to the Garden Centre now, collect a pot, potato and compost, FREE OF CHARGE, and grow the heaviest crop to win the
“POTTY POTATO COMPETION”
class at our annual “Horticultural Show” at the end of August 2026.
Sow Mixed Lettuce Leaves and Rocket Runaway in a trough approximately 45cms long and 15cms deep using Jacks Magic Compost. It is only about 8 weeks before they are ready to eat so keep sowing small quantities every 2 weeks for a continuous supply.
The new kids on the block are the Microgreens. These are seedlings of vegetables and herbs harvested by cutting the leaves one month after germination. Rich in nutrients with delicious flavours for salads. Varieties to grow are Mixed Spicey Leaves, Mixed Mild Salad Leaves, Fenugreek, Mustard Red Frills, Basil Dark Opel, Purple Radish, Beetroot and Komatsuna. Add to your morning smoothie for a daily boost.
Courgette Buckingham Yellow, and Cucumber Marketmore, are very productive in pots. Keep the plants watered and fed with tomato food and cut as soon as the fruits mature for crops throughout the summer.
Excellent for oriental cooks is Pak Choi Green Revolution it matures quickly and there’s no wastage as we wilt the whole vegetable in sesame oil for about 4 mins.
Another brilliant cropper is Climbing Bean Cobra. Grow in a large pot make a wigwam of bamboo canes. Plant two seeds to each cane and harvest when the pods are about 12cms long and very thin for great flavour.
Tomatoes, Peppers and Chillies are all brilliant for pot culture. Start the seeds on a sunny windowsill in seed compost in March and only plant in the final place after the last frost. All these vegetables like a sunny place and regular watering with tomato feed to give great rewards. Sub Arctic Plenty is an excellent small tomato and Alicante has large fruits. Both set well in cooler climates. King of the North, a large variety of Salad Pepper also cooks well and Prairie Fire is a good hot small Chillie.
Herbs grown in pots are fantastic because they can be on a sunny kitchen windowsill or outside the back door, so convenient when finishing a dish or serving. I always have Basil Aroma and Coriander Cliantro growing on my kitchen sink windowsill, so easy to water them there. Outside the backdoor are Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (you can sing it if you want) Oregano and Chives. These plants will grow for at least a couple of seasons if you plant them using John Innes Compost and feed with a slow release fertilizer added. Keep harvesting herbs and if they are growing faster than you use them put the leaves on trays to dry, freeze or microwave for winter use.
To grow Strawberries and Raspberries in pots choose a glazed, plastic or fibre glass container not terracotta which dries out too quickly. Any good compost like Westland JI with Multicompost is suitable and the container should be raised on bricks or pot feet to give good drainage. Any variety of Strawberry will do well but at the moment there is only one Raspberry, Ruby Beauty. Blueberries are the easiest crop and highest yielding of all fruit to grow. They need acidic soils so ericaceous compost with added mycorrhizal compound is essential.
Pot to Pot so delicious and fresh and all your own home grown.
No matter how large or small your garden if you love food, cooking and growing things what can be better than growing your own fresh Veg, Herbs and Fruit. You can grow a lot in POTS. Carefully select the varieties to grow to maximize the quality, flavours and yield and of course only grow the things you really like. Here are some tried and tested varieties to try.
British wildlife is being threatened even more by the unseasonal weather patterns that we are experiencing.
January although the middle of winter is the new start to the gardening year. Although the days are cold and often dull with little sunshine there can still be lots of plants to brighten the borders with colourful stems, evergreen foliage and even some that actually flower at this time of year.
