Grow your own in rented houses

[squidlywidly]

I live in a rented house with a reasonable sized garden that gets a nice amount of sunlight. I would love to grow my own veg, salad things mostly but also kale, chard and beans. All growing must be low cost and pesticide free.

The problem is that the landlord has requested that we do not disturb the lawns so that only leaves us with two narrow flower beds (60cm X 200cm aprox) and the patio areas to grow on.

I would love some advice from anyone, and also book/ web suggestions to get me started.

Loads of things can be grown in containers and things like peas that grow tall could go in the beds.

We have strawberries in hanging baskets but I think some tomatoes do well in them too.

the main difficulty you have is getting containers and compost/gravel for the bottom with out it costing a fortune.

When we were first married we lived in a scruffy flat in an old Victorian flat that had the most perfect scruffy walled garden we were not even allowed to maintain... just pots on patio and we managed in the year we were there to grow a few bits and bobs. found that LNG troughs worked really well as they were much cheaper than equivalent space in round pots, also, any friends with compost heaps, gravel, seedling etc - let them know your position. we were lucky yo have deep win do ledges too so grew lots of seedlings, salad, toms etc next to the window.

Now live in our own terrace housing estate home with small yard at back... which after 7 years a chock a block with green :-). some over grown as I have had a poorly back but barely any pavement to get DHs bike through

If you can, get the biggest pots you can or you will be spending hours watering. We got looooads of those crystals that turn to Kelly really cheap from b and q at end of season and that's brilliant.

are you thinking veg or pretty or both? Budget size? do you want everything to match or have alsorts of containers?

If you can get some wooden crates even they're great.

I've got tomatoes and strawberries growing in grow bags - just cut a couple of squares in the top and put them in. My strawberries are last years plants that have come up again.

We've got tomatoes in grow bags and chillis in pots, not much else, although the garden does have pear trees in it.

Beans in the beds
Salad and herbs in pots

Try tomatoes in pots and also herbs grow very nicely and don't take up much space.

The most practical thing is, of course, to use everything as intended. We always buy bowl planter pots online. The offerings are in assortment. And in excellent quality. All of our household members love flowers.

You can make cheap, large containers out of builders trugs and Ikea carrier bags, as well as buying grow bags. The compost is the expensive bit. B and q buckets will last a year or two

James Wong suggests (and I agree) that the best things to grow for food are salads, herbs and berries. Any fruit you grow, use containers so you can take them with you. I would add courgettes to the list as they grow fast and one or two plants can give you a whole summer's worth of produce. You are only a tiny bit late to sow these - stick a couple of seeds in the corner of the flower bed and let the plants spill out over the lawn when they grow. The grass will suffer a bit but will recover quickly

If you are growing for climate/nature reasons you might do just as much good by growing flowers for pollinators as well as or instead of vegetables. Nasturtiums provide flowers and salad. You can also use lavender, rose and scented pelargonium to make beautiful flavoured syrups, creams, teas etc. There are many edible flowers out there and they might work well for you if you fancy trying them.

Read James Wong and Alys Fowler columns on Guardian for free. If you can get hold of a book called Blooming Ingenious the Impoverished Gardener's Guide by Angela Kirby it's a great read. very dated now and not specifically about vegetable gardening but I found it very inspiring.