The Cottage Smallholder

Photo: One Pot Pledge

Have you heard of the One Pot Pledge®? This is a great campaign started by Garden Organic – the largest organic growing charity in the UK. The idea is to encourage 30,000 people who have not grown some of their own food before to make a pledge to grow something edible in a pot.

This is a superb initiative as everyone has a place somewhere for a pot. Even if it’s on your desk at work. This campaign started much earlier this year but there are still lots of things that you can grow and enjoy. Salad leaves, peas or even nurture a tomato or a chilli pepper plant – there are still a few available from nursery gardens and places like Homebase.

Garden Organic is very wise. Once non growers taste ultra fresh homegrown produce it’s very likely that they will be hooked and searching for more places to house yet more pots.

Too many of us believe that you need an allotment or a garden with a large vegetable plot to grow your own.  But if you don’t happen to have one of these you can still grow vegetables in pots, window boxes and containers.

I grow quite a lot of fruit and vegetables in containers each year as the kitchen garden gets filled up very quickly. By growing vegetables in containers, I can take real advantage of the sheltered, sunny front garden. I tend to go for the biggest pots as they don’t need watering so much. But I’ve had success growing herbs in pots on the kitchen window sill – using lengths of old towelling as capillary matting so that they don’t dry out. This ‘make do and mend’ capillary matting is simple to set up. Put one end of the towelling in a container of water and spread the rest of the wet towelling under the pots. Top up the water container as and when needed. The plants will draw up the water that they require. This type of watering also encourages good root growth.

As I already grow my own I can’t make a pledge personally. So I’ve signed up as a Gardening Guru. Gurus are encouraged to find at least three non’growers to make the pledge and have a go at growing some food in a pot. One of those people could be you!

If you already grow your own why not consider becoming a Gardening Guru and support Garden Organic’s excellent campaign.