Fancy creating your own supply of juicy fruits, crunchy vegetables and fresh salad greens? This selection of great foods sprout more-or-less like magic out of the ground—with the minimum of effort. Whether you’ve only a windowsill, garden or balcony, get planting today. Here are ten of the easiest fruit and veg you can grow, with step-by-step instructions from the experts at Garden Organic.

Salad

Lettuce, rocket and other crunchy leaves are easy to grow. Cut them and they keep coming back!

Super-easy to grow indoors all year around
Constant harvest – leaves can be picked over and again and they’ll grow back
Pick’n’ mix your favourite flavours, textures and varieties – peppery rocket, crunchy lettuce, exotic oriental saladini

Complete growing directions

You can grow salad all year inside. Try mixing different lettuces or adding rocket. Oriental varieties work best for winter use – sow in September and they’ll last you until March.
Fill a seed tray with compost.
Toss over about a quarter of a teaspoon of salad seeds.
Cover with a sprinkling of compost, water it carefully and place it on a sunny windowsill.
Don’t let it dry out.
Hint: Try stretching cling film over the top of the tray to keep moisture in. Take it off as soon as seedlings start to appear.
When the plants are about 3in tall you can start cutting them and they’ll keep growing back again and again.

Alternative method: you can grow salad in 12 inch pot or directly in the soil in your garden.

Watering

The easiest way to tell if something needs watering is with your finger: poke it into the soil to test.
If the soil is damp just under the surface, don’t water. If it is dry up to the first crease of your finger then you need to water.
Seeds and seedlings need care when watering – use a fine-head watering can so you don’t over-water them.
It is better to water well infrequently than to sprinkle a little every day.

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