Grow your own veggies

World Planting Day is coming up on 21 March, and what better way to get involved in the global movement than by planting your own herbs and vegetables

To help you out, here are three herbs and vegetables you can easily plant at home and will happily grow all year round for your thrifty meals

GROW YOUR OWN this world planting day

The need for seed: good for your pocket and the planet

GARLIC GREENS

Garlic greens can be used in any dish you would use regular garlic cloves in - just expect a more subtle flavour.

The process of planting your own is simple. Using a four-inch pot with multiple holes at the bottom, plant 10-12 unpeeled cloves individually in the pot, making sure they’re all close enough together and about one inch down in the compost. That’s it! All that’s left to do is care for your potted pal by placing it in a sunny spot and watering it well.

After a week, you should see the beams begin to rise. Once the shoots are around 8-10 inches long, you can snip them off and use them as you please. Just be mindful to compost the contents and begin the process from scratch. A good tip is to save up your leftover cloves throughout the week and make this a habit.

REMEMBER If the soil is dry, so is your plant. So if it’s looking a bit dehydrated, let it pour.

MICRO GREENS

Microgreens are simply the seedlings of vegetables and herbs all grown as one and can be used to garnish any meal that tickles your fancy from salads to pasta dishes.

Just like the garlic greens, the process of growing your own is quick and easy. Just pick up some vegetable and herb seeds from your local farmers market or garden centre. You can choose anything from kale and radishes to beets and basil. Fill a shallow tray (no more than two inches deep with air holes at the base) with compost. Sprinkle the seeds on the surface before lightly covering them once again with more compost. Continue to keep the soil moist, preferably using a spray bottle and make sure your seedlings get 12-14 hours of light per day.

The batch should take between three to four weeks to grow around two inches. Once they do, hold the greens at the stem and snip them towards the base just above the soil. There you go, you’re good to garnish! You should use your greens the same day, but if not, store them in a bag in the fridge where they will last up to five days.

GINGER

You can never have too much ginger lying around. If you’re anything like us, you like to save leftover ginger, especially for hot ginger and lemon water when you’re feeling weak. It also helps to clam nausea and inflammation. To grow your own, all you need is a chunk of ginger, some soil and a container. It takes two minutes to begin the growing process. Just pop the ginger in the container and cover it with soil. Place in an area where it receives indirect sunlight and patiently wait for new growth. Make sure you keep the soil moist but ensure it’s never waterlogged.

To harvest the ginger that constantly grows within the soil, simply remove it from the soil and cut off as much as you need. Once you’ve harvested the amount you need, chuck it back in the soil and allow it to continue growing. It’s really that simple!

TIP: check our your local bargain shop for cheap seeds! [ ]

THE REDUCTION RAIDER THRIFTY LIVING

... Spills the beans

Frugal foodie and food waste warrior Laura Gaga AKA The Reduction Raider tells us why yellow-sticker food shopping is the way forward

Laura Gaga is a civil servant from London who is passionate about eating well for less and avoiding food waste where possible. For the past eight years, she has solely been buying discounted “yellow sticker” food from the reduced aisle in supermarkets. In 2015, she set up an Instagram account reduction_ raider1 to share her experiences of yellow sticker shopping. She also has a blog reductionraider1.wordpress.com where she shares thrifty recipes and tips.

Can’t cook, won’t cook

Growing up in London in the 80s, Laura was as fussy an eater as they come. Her diet consisted of fish fingers, waffles and fizzy drinks. Things didn’t get much better when she went to university. Unable to cook, Laura relied on ready meals and takeaways to get by. “The idea of food waste wasn’t on my mind at all back then. I didn’t pay any attention to how much I was actually spending on food either.” says Laura.

Needs must It was only after university when Laura moved into her own flat that she reluctantly started cooking for herself. “When you live alone, you become completely responsible for your meals. I had no idea how to shop for one person, how to budget or what meals to make for myself,” says Laura. Spaghetti bolognese, shepherd’s pie and chilli con carne became her go-to dishes and she remained wary of trying new things. “I was still really fussy and I was adamant on following recipes to the letter,” she adds.

A yellow sticker revelation Everything changed in 2011 when she sat down to have lunch with her work colleague Andy one day. “He brought in all this reduced food with yellow stickers on it. I didn’t even know that supermarkets reduced food at the end of the day. My mind was blown,” exclaims Laura. “Like most of us, I wanted to cut down my food bill so I started looking out for yellow stickers myself. I think the first thing I ever bought was a bag of donuts for 10p - it was such a buzz! I was on the phone to anyone who would listen, telling them about it,” she laughs. Before long she was buying all her staples - fruit and veg, bread, meat and fish - from the reduced aisles too.

New ways of thinking “To begin with, yellow sticker shopping was just about saving money, but over time, it transformed my relationship with food. Usually, when you go food shopping, you buy what you need but when you shop this way you’ve got to be more open-minded. I’d think, right, this is what I’ve got - what can I make from it?” explains Laura. “With the internet, we’re lucky enough to have information at our fingertips. If I don’t have a specific ingredient, I’ll just Google a substitute.” One question Laura often gets asked is how to find the best reduced items but she believes there is no secret trick, “You can’t go in with something specific in mind or you’ll just be disappointed.”

Waste not Yellow-sticker shopping has also made Laura more mindful of wasting food. “Even when we have plenty of food in, we buy more and it ends up going to waste,” she says. “It’s about being creative with what you already have - really, there are no rules about what can and can’t go together.” Now following a vegan diet, Laura believes she is proof that you can have a well-rounded diet consisting of food that would otherwise have gone to waste. Indeed, looking at the recipes on her blog which feature exciting dishes such as peanut butter dal, white beet and leek burgers and rhubarb muffins, Laura doesn’t seem to be missing out in terms of nutrition or flavour. Plus, she’s saving pennies and saving the planet in the process.

REDUCED

Products that have been reduced in price because they are approaching their “use by” or “best before” date. Discounts range from a few pence to over 90% of the full price. What are yellow sticker items?

Laura’s savvy shopping tips:

Understand sell-by dates: It’s easy to get confused between ‘best before’, ‘use by’ and ‘display until’ labels on food. ‘Best before’ refers to the quality of the product rather than how safe it is to eat, apart from eggs. ‘Display until’ labels aren’t of any use to the consumer, these are used to help with stock control. The ‘use by date’ means the product should be used by the end of this date - you should follow storage instructions on the packaging.

Know what you’ve got in: Before you go food shopping, take stock of what’s in your fridge and cupboards so you think about how you can use it up before you go out and buy another bag of onions you don’t really need.

The freezer is your friend: Most yellow sticker items can be frozen and used later. Research how to store different types of produce - milk, cheese, bread, leftovers and herbs can all be frozen. Be careful with meat and fish, however.

BEETS

To make sure you’re not left with the inevitable ‘pink finger’ from beetroot, rub lemon juice and salt on your hands before washing with soap and warm water

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