Growing food to sell

New research by BBC Gardeners’ World magazine reveals UK gardeners are leading the way in the 'Kitchen Garden' revolution – an astonishing proportion of UK gardeners are already growing their crops specifically for the kitchen table, with 96% currently growing some form of fruit, vegetable, salad or herbs in their gardens. This resurgence in growing for the table is being led by local and organic food initiatives and programmes like Delia, which focus on fresh local produce. But there’s more to it than that.

Food miles are the measure of the economic cost of producing a food or ingredient. Awareness of the cost of importing foods means that many local restaurants and shops are buying as close to home as possible. And Farmer’s Markets are springing up across the UK to respond to this need. For the hobby gardener with a greenhouse this is a potentially lucrative source of income. But you need to specialise. Growing glut tomatoes or Little Gem lettuce won’t net you much profit, but picking a rare variety that looks lovely or odd, can really boost your sales.

The Heritage Seed Library was created in 1975 to keep old plant varieties alive. Today over 800 different kinds are kept at Ryton, and are grown and enjoyed by more than 10,000 HSL members. Keeping these old vegetables alive is an expensive operation, for which they get no government support. As a result, they offer the public the change to adopt a vegetable, which gets you a packet of rare veg seeds to grow. From there it’s a small step to taking a stall at the market to sell your stuff, or ringing your local gourmet eatery and offering them the chance to buy your unique and flavourful produce.