I’m a seasoned gardener… and you’ve got it all wrong: what you can grow at home will supply you with cheap food for months

With the food supply in turmoil while the cost of living crisis continues, now is the time to grow your own.

You’ll feel the health and financial benefits—and you don’t have to be an experienced gardener.

MailOnline Travel was led by head gardener Anne-Marie Owens through the incredible gardens of the pioneering two Michelin star restaurant Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, pointing out various plants and vegetables that she and her team tend to the chefs. , which are easy to grow at home and some of which provide inexpensive nutrition for months. Read on for her best tips…

radish and lettuce

Anne-Marie says radishes and lettuce can boost confidence because they are easy to grow.

She explains: “It’s about what you like to eat, what you usually buy… You’re going to have some failures, so you need things that grow easily. Your radishes are pretty easy to grow, your lettuce is pretty easy to grow. You need that little bit of inspiration.”

CORIANDER

Coriander is a great way to take dishes to the next level, says Anne-Marie.

She says, “Spread some [coriander] Flowers on a bandage, and it will lift it. And there is so much flavor in the stems. What to put in casserole, something that cooks for a while. This will really bring out the flavor.

“When the first frost comes, it knocks the plant back, so lift the roots, clean them, simmer and you have a nice paste to start a Thai curry with.”

VIETNAMESE CORIANDER

Anne-Marie says about Vietnamese coriander: “Complex taste. There is quite a lot going on. Works beautifully with strawberries. A few leaves in a bowl of strawberries overnight. It macerates a bit.’

ZUCCHINI

MailOnline Travel got a tour of Belmond’s incredible gardens, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons (above), from Anne-Marie.

Zucchini is very nutritious and grows quickly, says Anne-Marie. “You can get Mark out of it and you can feed a family with a Mark. Scoop it out, boil it, add some mince… And it’s a very cheap seed.”

MAP

“Chard is wonderful,” says Anne-Marie. “The stalk itself is edible, the leaves are edible — it’s almost like a spinach substitute. Once the plant is established, cut off a few leaves a few times a week and it will stay that way for six months. You can grow them in pots or in a raised bed.

“You can grow it as a baby leaf or you can grow it full size so it becomes a full-fledged vegetable.”

“You can use it as a lettuce, you can drain it like spinach, you can wrap it around fish… It’s great value and keeps coming back. And once established, it requires no real expertise. You should feed it, but it will need quite a bit of frosting. But you can cover it with newspaper or burlap [for protection].’

POTATOES

“Potatoes are delicious,” says Anne-Marie. “But get the right kind you want.” Growing a main crop is quite difficult unless you have a large garden area. Main culture is if you plant them in the spring, dig them up around August, let them dry and the skin hardens for a few days. These are the ones you can slip into a bag, keep in a cool place and stay in good shape all winter long. So you can feed yourself on potatoes, but it’s a space issue.

“New potatoes are delicious. They come in quite early and come out quite early – but potatoes are not necessarily the cheapest in terms of time and space.”

Anne-Marie recommends starting with radishes and lettuce because they are easy to grow and give you confidence as a beginner

TO PUSH

Next we come to “Squash Delicatessen”.

“It’s a long-winded guy,” explains Anne-Marie. “So you can take it over an arc. It can go both vertically and horizontally. In a nice sunny spot that grows beautifully. Use it to make delicious ravioli. It’s very productive.”

micro water candle

“If you don’t have anything outside, but you have that windowsill, you can use a yogurt jar or a margarine jar or even an egg cup to grow watercress, which is very high in vitamin C,” says Anne-Marie. “A few leaves on a cheese sandwich is nice.”

CELERY AND BASIL

Anne-Marie: “Basil is perfect in summer. Delicious in a tomato salad. And celery leaves go with everything. You can have a dinner and keep it in glasses, put scissors on the table and everyone helps themselves. Bring it out with a cheese plate. What would be different.

“Celery takes almost nine months from seed and is a rather clumsy plant to grow. So from seed to eating it’s basically nine months – that’s the time you can have a baby – but celery leaves only last about a month. And it’s a bit like flat-leaf parsley. If you grow it as a single plant, you can remove the leaves and it will continue to produce for you.

“It’s in the same family as celery, but it’s a different seed.” It’s a different kind.

“You can put it in the saucepan at the end – if you make it too early it will break down too much.” But just sprinkle on top. It’s just such a hit.”

BEANS

You can eat beans – and they look good.

Anne-Marie says: “Drying beans, climbing green beans – even if you only have a few pots in front of the front door, a few walking sticks or a nice arch. You can grow them there, they look decorative.”

field beans and bad beans

Manoir from heaven: Anne-Marie’s “Office”. A stay at the property costs from £995

Anne-Marie: “You can heat acorns with anything you want. The flowers are edible, give you a very subtle broad bean flavor and you have the broad beans themselves. The roots produce nitrogen nodules so they are great for autumn. You probably won’t get many beans in bad weather, but you will if they die in the spring [when the leaves perish but the roots remain alive], nitrogen is released, ready for your new plants. So they don’t just feed you, they feed the soil.”

CHILI

“Inside, they are happy with a bit of sunlight and they like to grow,” says Anne-Marie.

CHAMPIONS – THE DIFFICULT

“The ones we like, like chanterelles,” says Anne-Marie, “you can’t grow them commercially. They can only grow where they like to grow. For example, many fungi grow on certain trees and tree roots because of the leaves and chemicals in the soil.

“But you can grow mushrooms, if you give them the right conditions, they will grow. They just grow in old compost.”