The Edible Garden

Alys Fowler makes broad bean falafels and pea shoot cocktails.

Alys Fowler attempts to avoid shop-bought fruit and vegetables and live off home-grown produce. She shows how salad crops are some of the easiest things to grow.

Alys Fowler tries to avoid shop-bought fruit and veg and live off home-grown produce. Root crops and leafy greens are the mainstays of an edible garden.

Fruit, particularly fruit like raspberries and blueberries, can be a costly luxury bought from the shops, yet nothing could be simpler to grow. You plant them and then just sit back and wait. With most of her garden devoted to growing vegetables, Alys still manages to squeeze in some juicy fruits alongside her mature apple tree. As well as enjoying them for breakfast, Alys preserves their flavour by making jams, tangy fruit leathers and sweet dried apple rings.

Alys Fowler demonstrates how to grow herbs and flowers and use them as ingredients in a selection of dishes, including herb omelettes, bread with rosemary and salads. She also reveals how they are important to attract wildlife to gardens, something essential to the health and productivity of any allotment.

Alys Fowler shows how to stock up vegetables for the colder months of the year as she grows courgettes, squashes, kale and Jerusalem artichokes. She also learns how to preserve food by using easy pickling recipes, forages for seeds and plants winter crops to keep her going until the next spring.