I’m a gardener and you’ve been gardening wrong: What to grow at home that’ll give you cheap food

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

You will feel the benefits, both health and financial – and you don’t have to be an experienced gardener.

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

RADISH AND LETTUCE

Anne-Marie says radishes and lettuce can give a confidence boost 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 radish is 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, “Sprinkle a few [coriander] flowers on a dressing, and that will elevate it. And there’s so much flavor in the stems. Which you could put in casseroles, something that’s going to cook for a while. That would really bring out the flavor.

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

VIETNAME CORIANDER

Anne-Marie says about Vietnamese coriander: ‘Complex taste. Quite a lot is happening. Works beautifully with strawberries. A few leaves in a bowl of strawberries overnight. It’s macerating a bit.’

ZUCCHINI

Zucchini is very nutritious and grows quickly, says Anne-Marie. ‘You can grow marrow out of it and with one marrow you can feed a family. Scoop it out, cook it, add a little minced meat… And it’s a very cheap seed.’

CARD

‘Chard is great,’ says Anne-Marie. ‘The stem itself is edible, the leaves are edible – it’s almost like a spinach substitute. Once the plant is established, strip a few leaves off a few times a week and it will continue to do so for six months. You can keep it in pots or on a raised bed.

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

‘You can use it as leaf lettuce, drain it like spinach, you can wrap it around fish… It’s great value for money and it keeps coming. And once it’s established, it doesn’t require any real expertise. You have to feed it, but it will take quite a bit of frost. But you can cover it with newspaper or horticultural fleece [for protection].’

POTATOES

‘Potatoes are delicious,’ says Anne-Marie. “But get the right variety you want.” Growing a main crop, unless you have a large area of ​​garden, is quite difficult. Maincrop is when you put them in in the spring, lift them around August, dry them for a few days, let the skin harden. They’re the ones you can put in a bag, put in a cool place, and they’ll stay in great shape all winter. So you can feed yourself with potatoes, but it’s a space issue.

‘New potatoes are beautiful. They go in nice and early and come out nice and early – but potatoes aren’t necessarily the best value in terms of time and space.’

SQUASH

Next we come to ‘squash delicateta’.

‘It’s a long-drawn-out type,’ explains Anne-Marie. “So you could 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 WATERCRESS

“If you don’t have anything outside but you have that window sill, you can use a yoghurt pot or a margarine tub 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.”

LEAF CELERY AND BASIL

Anne-Marie: ‘Basil is perfect in the summer. Delicious in a tomato salad. And celery leaves go with everything. You could have a dinner party and have them in little jars, put a pair of scissors on the table and everyone helps themselves. Bring it out with a cheese board. Which would be something different.

‘Celery takes almost nine months from sowing and is quite a clumsy plant to grow. So from seed to eat basically nine months – you could have a baby in that time – but celery leaf only takes about a month. And it’s kind of like flat parsley. If you grow it as an individual plant, you can take the leaves off and it will continue to produce for you.

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

“You can put it in casseroles at the end — if you do it too early, it breaks down too much.” But just sprinkle on top. It’s just such a hit of flavour.’

BEANS

Beans can be eaten – and they look good.

Anne-Marie says: ‘Running beans, climbing green beans – even if you only have a few pots by the front door, a few walking sticks or a nice arch. You can grow them there, they look decorative.’

FIELD BEANS AND BAD BEANS

Anne-Marie: ‘You can heat up field beans with anything you want. The flowers are edible, give you a very delicate fava bean flavor and you have the fava beans themselves. The roots produce nitrogen nodules, so these are great to use in the fall. If the weather is bad, you probably won’t get many beans, but if they die back in the spring [when the leaves perish but the roots remain alive], nitrogen is released, ready for your new crops. So they don’t just feed you, they feed the soil.’

CHILLIS

‘Indoors they are happy with a little sunlight and they like to grow’, says Anne-Marie.

MUSHROOMS – THE DIFFICULT

‘The ones we like, such as chanterelles’, says Anne-Marie, ‘you can’t grow commercially. They can only grow where they like to grow. For example, many mushrooms grow on certain trees and tree roots because of the foliage and chemicals in the soil.

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

Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons – A Belmond Hotel, Church Road, Great Milton, Oxford, OX44 7PD. Rooms cost from £995 (B&B). The hotel offers free stays for children under 12 who can choose from a children’s menu in the restaurant and take home a Seed Explorers package.

Visit www.belmond.com/hotels/europe/uk/oxfordshire/belmond-le-manoir-aux-quat-saisons.