Unearth extra cash

Thousands of Scots are turning their back gardens into vegetable plots to beat the recession...

Garden centres have reported a huge rise in demand for vegetable seeds, herbs and fruit trees. The Dobbies chain has sold £1 million of seeds and fruit trees in the past two months - 82 per cent up on the same period last year.

Sales of tomato seeds rose by a third over the same period to 100,000 packets, while demand for strawberry seeds went up 135 per cent to 63,000 packets.

Vegetable seed sales at B&Q, Britain's largest outdoor goods retailer, have risen by 27 per cent over the past year, while demand for ready-to-plant vegetables has soared by 40 per cent. The most popular include traditional vegetables like onions, carrots, peas, beans, tomatoes and lettuces.

The drive towards self-sufficiency, which mirrors the 1970's sitcom The Good Life, is being fuelled by the global economic crisis and soaring food prices. The average cost of a basket of shopping has risen by almost a fifth since the credit crunch took hold last year, six times the rate of inflation.

It is estimated that households could save about £350 a year by supplementing their diet with home-grown fruit and vegetables. A young tomato plant costing 99p can yield up to six trusses of fruit, which would cost £10 in the shops.

Many people are persuaded by the health and environmental benefits of eating their own vegetables, which have much lower exposure to pesticides than intensively-grown crops.

According to a recent survey of more than 1,000 people by ICM Research, 26 per cent now grow their own fruit and vegetables. Of those, 75 per cent said they were doing it to save money.

James Barnes, Dobbies Chief Executive, said, "There's a genuine trend in people wanting to grow their own food, to get back to nature and get their hands dirty. Also, growing your own fruit, tomatoes and potatoes saves money."

Despite the surge in demand, many city dwellers no longer know how to grow fruit and vegetables. As a result, garden centres are organising staff workshops to train them to give better advice to customers.

The increasing popularity of growing your own fruit and vegetables coincides with renewed demand for allotments, which previously hit a peak during the second world war when about three million tons of fruit and vegetables were produced.