Veg out: Enjoy home-grown produce and boost your house's value

As gardens go, mine's a whopper, but what it lacks is a decent lawn. So when I got in a man last spring to churn up the tatty grass and plan a new one, it seemed the perfect opportunity to set aside a plot for fruit and veg. 

'Daft not to,' I told the wife, spade in one hand, a packet of seeds in the other. As the summer progressed and the distant rumblings of the economic crisis became a fullblown storm, my endeavours seemed an increasingly good idea. 

But, sadly, by October I had little to show for it. My crop comprised no more than 20 carrots, a dozen cucumbers and a solitary tomato. Well, at least, I tried - and shall do so again this spring. 
And I am not alone in this pursuit of grow-your-own sustainability. A recent survey found that a quarter of Britons are planning on growing their own fruit and veg this year, spurred on by smaller pay packets, the dream of becoming 'self-sufficient' and doing away with the dreaded supermarket shop. 

And not only that, a garden could add value to your home, too. 

'A well-tended vegetable garden can certainly add to the asking price of your property,' says Cate Dodkin, from estage agent Foxtons. 'It can also widen the market for your home.' 

But to turn your garden into an oasis of fruit and veg that would impress buyers requires effort and knowledge, according to Ben Raskin, of the Soil Association.

'If you approach it with no idea of what you're doing, many things could go wrong,' he says. 

'For example, if you're not sure when crops are in season, when to sow and when to harvest, you'll struggle. But just because you messed up in the first year doesn't mean it won't work the next.' 

You don't even need to have a garden to cash in on your home's food-growing capabilities. 

Mr Raskin says it's feasible to grow tomatoes and peppers in pots indoors. 

You can also grow tasty cut-and-come-again lettuces on your windowsill. But to get food for a family of four from your garden, Paul Robinson, a former pesticide expert who runs an organic farm and box delivery scheme, (waterlandorganics.co.uk) near Lode, Cambridgeshire, says you need an eighth of an acre. 

'Small and compact is definitely best,' he says. 'Having too much land can be soul-destroying because you never have time to get around it.' 

If an eighth of an acre sounds a tiddly plot to put food into four mouths all year round, Mr Raskin has done the sums and shows how it can be achieved. 

In just one square metre you could grow 49 onions, or you could put in six seed potatoes and stand well back as a stone of chips-in-waiting do their stuff under the soil. 

Multiply this by 505, the number of square metres in an eighth of an acre, and a mountain of food suddenly appears before your eyes - if it all goes to plan, of course. 

'A common mistake is that people are over-ambitious,' says Mr Raskin. 'Start with three or four things rather than ten. Then you can introduce new plants next year.'

He recommends a few safe bets for first-timers, such as high yielding courgettes and lettuce. Set-up costs should be no more than a few pounds for seeds, ?100 for tools and maybe ?150 for a second-hand polytunnel, which will give you a longer growing season. 

After that, you're in God's hands. But it might just be worth it.

'People are keener on gardens than ever. The ability to grow fruit and vegetables in the current economic climate is appealing,' says Mrs Dodkin. 'We are working with a buyer who came to us with a specific request to find her a house with a large garden so that she could grow her own food.'

Better even than all of this, your vegetable patch could become a healthy addiction. 

'It gets into your blood,' says Mr Raskin, who has been growing his own for 14 years. 

'People like working outside, and a lot of the enjoyment comes from re-connecting with your food.

'We've become so far removed from what we eat that digging up a potato with your bare hands and then seeing it on the dinner table is hard to beat.'