Gardens: Get a taste for homegrown fare

WITH soaring food prices, naturally it makes more sense to grow our own. But where and how to start?

The Edible Gardening Project is a new community-focused project based at the Royal Botanic Garden aimed at encouraging us all to grow and eat healthy food.

Run jointly with the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society with funding from the People's Postcode Lottery, it provides a new volunteer task force of experts who can offer help and support for anyone thinking of growing their own food.

The drop-in sessions at the Garden started with a weed identification workshop, when it emerged that some of the most troublesome weeds for gardeners are Horsetail (Equisetum species) and Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria).

Both are very invasive and extremely difficult to eradicate. Horsetail should be covered with a weed suppressant membrane or old carpet to keep it at bay, although this will need to be left in place for up to four years.

Ground Elder can be tackled by constantly digging out roots and removing leaves to weaken the plant. Ground Elder, however, was introduced to Britain by the Romans who used it as a food crop - so toss the leaves into the bowl with your lettuce and rocket for a mixed garden salad.

In fact, several plants we commonly consider to be weeds are edible and are often very nutritious. Chickweed (Stellaria media) has been found to contain twice the amount of iron of spinach. Perhaps Popeye was barking up the wrong tree.

Project volunteers will be at the Garden on Monday from 1pm for a drop-in session.

And over the coming year the Edible Gardening Project will provide many opportunities to find out more about vegetable varieties, sowing seeds, composting, pruning, harvesting, storing and preparing your produce. For details about our drop-in sessions and demonstrations please go to www.rbge.org.uk/ediblegardening

Jenny Foulkes is Edible Gardening Project manager at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh