.... or you could grow your own!

Starting an organic garden isn't that difficult. If you already grow vegetables, fruit or herbs, all you need to do is change some of your methods, so that, for example, instead of blasting a pest with chemicals, you protect the crop so the little beastie can't get to it. Or you might introduce a predator to eat the pest.

If you want to get a taste of how much fun an organic garden can be, the best thing to do is pick one crop from the annual varieties to begin with. The best idea is to choose something you like to eat, which is hard to get or expensive. Here are a few suggestions:

• You don't often see the old fashioned runner bean on sale any more. This bean is so tasty, very different in flavour to the French bean. You can dot these around the flower garden and they won't look out of place, if you keep cutting the beans.

• Almost everyone likes spring onions. You can grow these in a big pot, if you like, but you must keep them well watered and weeded. Other than that, these are very quick and easy.

• Mange tout peas are so easy to grow - they just crop and crop and crop.

• Are you a salad enthusiast? Growing a mixed salading is a very easy start, and you get lots of different flavours to add to your salads. price of a packet of seed will probably be anything from £1 to £3.50, which will produce enough salad to feed an army. Don’t bother with lettuce, this is too attractive to pests, and cheap enough to buy.

• Courgettes (zucchini) are really easy. Three or four plants will produce more than enough for the average family, and you can grow them in big pots on the patio to save digging.

• Tomatoes are popular with most people. Gardener's Delight, will produce lots of tasty small tomatoes you can use as cherry tomatoes. One or two plants in large pots would not be too difficult to look after, although they must be kept watered, fed and trained.

• Other greenhouse crops are sweet peppers and chillis. You can grow chillis indoors and move them outside when the weather is good, June, July or August. You still need to keep them watered and fed, though.

I hope this article has given you the encouragement to give organic gardening a try. Why not start your own organic garden this weekend – but don’t forget that Back to the Garden will always be crammed with all the vegetables you haven’t grown yourself!