Growing A Garden Packed With Healthy Superfoods Could Be Easier Than You Think

How To Grow A Garden Packed With Superfoods

Green-fingered foodies take note: if your fridge is stocked with the best superfoods that money can buy, then the following advice should certainly be of interest...

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) are urging superfood fans to grow their own "supergardens" full of incredibly healthy fruit and veg.

According to the society, any garden - whatever its size - can be used to grow highly nutritious and flavoursome foods ranging from tomatoes and kale to blueberries. They're good for you and they can even look good, too.

Gardeners who only have small plots or urban gardens can try growing blueberries in pots, training a kiwi vine over an arch or putting in alpine strawberries beneath trees, the RHS said.

Possibilities for bigger gardens include globe artichokes, which add height, colour and taste to ornamental beds, while wigwams for climbing varieties of beans can also be decorative.

The experts added that raised beds of carrots, beetroot, chard, kale and spinach could be fitted into a sunny spot in most gardens.

Chief horticultural adviser Guy Barter said: "We're often sold the idea of superfoods, which are rich in vitamins and minerals. All vegetables are good of course, but we've looked through and identified some that are even better than others.

"For gardeners interested in health and good flavour there's a whole scope of things you can do."

He said that some foods were hard to grow in the UK, for example citrus fruits, while bell peppers ideally needed a greenhouse to thrive in our climate.

If there were space constraints, vegetables that needed plenty of room, such as pumpkins, might be hard to fit in and asparagus was "brilliant but you have to wait two years before you can get it".

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Mr Barter also noted that his top three superfoods were beetroot, kale and blueberries.

"Beetroot is a bit of a marmite situation. You either love it or loathe it," he said, adding that if gardeners like it the leaves and the roots are tasty and the seed is pretty cheap.

Kale was also a winner because the seed is cheap, the plants last a long time, grow all winter and are "incredibly flavoursome", he added.

Mr Barter also mentioned that blueberries can be grown in pots which are close to the house (to keep the birds off). This way it's easy to harvest the fruit to add straight into your breakfast bowl.

His advise to would-be "supergardeners"?

Spend this time of year planning your garden, although keen superfood fans in southern England could try sowing beetroot and kale for leaves in sheltered spots or greenhouses.

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