Grow your own

The challenge

Read the pdf document below to find out what the Eco Family are up to in May:

Eco Family diary

May’s challenge was all about growing your own fruit and vegetables and also buying seasonal produce. Several reasons for all of this was to save money, for instance, “seasonal” means more produce available so costs will be lower. Also having the convenience of fruit and vegetables in your garden has benefits such as being tastier and fresher not to mention more vitamins as it has not travelled hundreds of miles before it has reached you.

The challenge was somewhat nice to do as we had lots of pointers to help us on our way. An example of this was a workshop at my house in my Garden where I invited a small group of friends and family. It was a very informative workshop where we were shown how to plant and correctly care for herbs, fruits and vegetables. The demonstration was fantastic and all those that came along commented on how Paul (our demonstrator) was so knowledgeable as well as that there were plenty plants and seeds for my friends and family to take away and start growing in their own garden.

My children was also involved in the workshop and seemed to enjoy it with lots of interactions. They were familiar to “growing your own” as their school has a garden and actively encourages the children to learn about growing produce and maintenance of a garden. The school has plentiful own grown vegetables and uses them in the school kitchen...now how convenient is that! I think that is a fantastic way to encourage the children to get growing your own and adopting this ethical way of thinking; that is from garden to plate. There are even children’s starter packs to growing in the garden. They don’t cost much and are a great way for the little ones to get started (Asda supermarket does them).

We also bought some seasonal produce and was given a vegetable and fruit season guide sheet which was handy to see what’s, what’s for each month with lots of variety which helped.

Overall we did enjoy the challenge, we got to make our garden look nice with home grown produce, and even sampled and distributed the herbs. One thing that I should point out is that you should regularly water and care for your produce in order to sustain a nice outcome especially with the current hot weather.
Tips I will take on board is to start growing my own produce ...you don’t need a huge space (my garden’s only 25ft). Buying seasonal produce will help you save money and you will adopt variety rather than having the same thing. Again I think it is necessary if we all did our bit to helping us on our way to a better environment.

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