Table of Contents
Do you walk along the fruit and veg aisle in the supermarket wishing you could grow your own vegetables instead of buying expensive products that have travelled thousands of miles?
Do you imagine yourself as Felicity Kendall in The Good Life but live in a rent-to-buy home in Bexley with a balcony and not a semi in Surbiton with a garden?
Fear not! It’s not impossible to grow food without a garden. In fact, it’s really simple and below are a few ideas to get you started. One thing to consider if growing food indoors is pest control and how to keep any creepy crawlies at bay and https://www.pestcontrolexperts.com/local/florida/ have lots of info on where to start.
Herbs
Herbs are probably the easiest edible to grow indoors. Depending on how adventurous you are, you can either start from scratch with seed, buy a kit that contains everything you need including the pot and compost, or start with living herbs from the supermarket that you can keep alive and growing on your kitchen windowsill to use as needed.
There’s a huge variety of herbs, but three of the most popular ones are:
- basil, which goes well on pizza or in any tomato-based dish (or even simply in a cheese and tomato sandwich);
- chives, which are a member of the onion family and go well with eggs or sprinkled on top of salads and jacket potatoes; and
- parsley, which makes a delicious sauce to go with just about everything.
Chillies
If you like a bit of spice in your food but thought chillies came from hot countries or could only be grown in greenhouses, think again, because chillies are easy to grow indoors in a pot on a sunny windowsill.
If you’re a bit of a chilli aficionado, you’ll know there are hundreds of varieties of chilli, ranging from the ‘you should be ashamed at calling yourself a chilli’ to the ‘owwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, my mouth is on fire’ variety.
Whichever type of chilli is your favourite, you can grow it indoors, but don’t expect your plants or peppers to be as large as they would be if grown outdoors.
As with herbs, chillies can be grown from seed, from a kit, or from an already established plant.
Chillies are great in stir-fries, curries and, of course, in chilli con (or non) carne.
Sprouts
No, not those green mini-cabbages your mum over-boils at Christmas, but sprouted seeds. When I said herbs were probably the easiest edible you can grow indoors, thinking about it, sprouts are even easier.
All you need to grow sprouts is a jar, a tray and some seeds, then after a few days, you’ll have a tray of super-healthy, super-tasty sprouts to go in sandwiches or salads, or just to munch on their own for a nutritious snack.
Types of seeds suitable for sprouting are mung bean, alfalfa, lentil and chickpea and you can buy packets of sprouting seeds from health food shops or online.
Visit your local garden centre
You can of course order any seeds online and look around for the cheapest deal. However, if you visit your local garden centre, you’ll be able to get advice on plenty more items you can grow indoors and support a local business while you’re at it.
