If you are a beginner or slightly wary of growing your own, then perhaps start with easy fruits and vegetables. Salad leaves and tomatoes are simple to grow – sow the seeds into a propagator tray of moist compost and leave them on a sunny windowsill to grow, watering occasionally. Radishes, beans and peas are easy to grow outside, just sow the seeds into a container or the ground and they’ll be ready in just under a month (remember to support your peas and beans as they are climbing plants). Alternatively, why not try onions, garlic or potatoes? Spring onions can be ready in a couple of months, onions and garlic towards the end of summer if sown inside between February and April and planted outside in May, and seed potatoes can be planted outside from mid-March onwards (remember to use frost fleece to protect them from any last frosts) and will be ready to harvest from June onwards.

There are also a variety of easy fruits to grow. Strawberries are wonderful fruits that are extremely popular and expensive in shops so worthwhile growing your own. They can come back year after year and provided they are looked after, will produce a good yield of tasty fruits right through until early autumn, depending on the variety. Blueberries are another fruit that is easy to grow. Ideally grown in containers, blueberry plants pollinate best when placed next to another variety. They will keep producing fruit from mid-summer onwards. Other berry and currant fruits such as blackberries, loganberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants or white currants are also easy to grow and need minimal care – this is where you can go slightly obscure if you like and find different berry bushes that appeal to you as there are many that can be grown in the UK. Just make sure you protect them from birds if required and water once a week during dry weather.