Food for Free

Even without a garden, many different herbs, fruit and vegetables can be grown on a sunny windowledge. Having had great success with cucumbers, aubergines, bush tomatoes, mustard and cress, rocket, Corn Salad (Lamb's Lettuce), and strawberries, plus many herbs, it is always
worth having a go. Both mint and basil root cuttings (even from a pot bought from a supermarket) root easily (pinch down to where a pair of tiny leaves sprout either side of the stem). Remove lower leaves from the cuttings leaving the top ones, shorten stems to finger length and stand in water. When roots appear, gently pot on into soil.
Do this regularly and you get plenty of pots of herbs. Use any surplus to barter - an instance, these last few weeks I have been given lettuce and tomatoes, the small ones (told the variety was Sungold which tasted as tomatoes should. Bliss). In return I gave a bag of apples and have promised a jar or two of jam and marmalade for the next trade.

Final tips, save the seeds from bought red bell peppers, and dry the seeds from tomatoes and almost certainly, when planted in early spring, these will grow into plants. Remember to label.
No need to buy pots, used cleaned small and large yoghurt cartons. Scub off the printing with a soapy steel wool pad if you want them to look like white ceramic.