10 foods you can grow in your house or garden

Save the Student

Fancy helping to save the planet while saving some cash? Try growing your own food at home – you might be surprised by just how easy it is.

Credit: agrino – Shutterstock

You might think tending to a garden or allotment is something only retired people do, but growing your own produce at home when you’re a student can save you a tonne of cash (and it’s actually pretty fun, too).

And the best part is, you don’t even necessarily need a garden to grow your own food – you can easily grow a few of your staple edibles indoors.

We’ve compiled our top ten greens you can easily grow in your garden (or house!) and added a few pointers on how to get started too.

How to grow fruit and vegetables at home

First things first: you don’t need to have a lush green garden to grow all sorts of tasty delights for you and your flatmates.

A little bit of space on a window sill will work just fine for small things like herbs, lettuce and cress, and you can grow smaller veg like tomatoes in plant pots in the kitchen.

If you do want to venture outside but you have limited room for planting, a hanging basket can give you above-ground growing space – and you can get them for around a fiver.

If you’re lucky enough to have a garden with some soil and space for digging, go ahead and start planting (but perhaps check with your landlord and neighbours first!).

You can also grow things like tomatoes, strawberries or potatoes in grow bags, as long as you have some outdoor space. They can cost as little as £3 and will have all the nutrients your plants will need.

For more deep-rooted vegetables such as carrots or potatoes, you can also try using a garden dustbin. Sounds odd? Totally works.

Finally, you could always see if your university has an allotment you can use. More than 60 different institutions have signed up to the NUS Student Eats programme where you can grow your own fruit and veg, and local councils may also have shared allotments you can hire too.

What do you need to grow food at home?

Gardening might sound like a hobby that comes with a whole host of expensive kit, but you really don’t need much to get cracking with growing some food.

If you’re growing indoors, you’ll really just need some appropriate pots, seeds and good quality soil, but that really is about it.

If you’re growing outside then you might want to invest in a watering can or some wooden stakes and garden wire for things like tomatoes (as they grow upwards on a vine).

A spot of fertiliser will help speed up growth and keep your soon-to-be-food at its best. You could use Baby Bio branded products for this, but they’re a bit expensive so a regular dry fertiliser (such as Growmore or blood, fish and bone fertiliser) is decent for any veg, and only needs to be used a few times a year.

You’ll only need to invest in hardcore things like shovels or trowels if you’re going to be putting stuff in the ground of your garden, but you can get these fairly cheaply on Amazon too.

10 easy to grow foods

If you’re looking to start growing your own food at home, these are the best types of produce to try: (continue reading)