Plant yourself some productive pots!

Plant yourself some productive pots! A roomy container or three can produce a surprising range of fruit, vegetables and herbs. Veg you can grow in pots include chilli peppers, sweet peppers, salads and green beans. Bush varieties of tomato do brilliantly, too, cascading over the sides laden with scarlet fruits by autumn. Look out for seeds marked ‘container veg’ on the seed racks at our garden centre here in Pickering - these are bred specially for growing in pots and are amazingly productive from even tiny spaces.

Plant yourself some productive pots!

Choose the roomiest pot you can - the larger your container, the happier your veg. Bigger pots don’t need watering as often, either. Put your pot where it’s going to end up, as you won’t want to move it once it’s heavy and full of compost and newly-planted veggies.

Fill to just below the rim with multi-purpose compost, mixed with a few handfuls of slow-release fertiliser and some water-retaining gel to keep it moist for longer. Sow fast-growing veg like salads from seed, but for larger crops like tomatoes, it’s better to buy a ready-grown plant to pop straight in to the compost. Keep watered, and within a couple of months you’ll be enjoying your first meal of delicious home-grown veg.