Just because you don’t have a huge allotment or a big back garden doesn’t mean you can’t grow your own food this year.

If you’re looking for ways to be more sustainable and self-sufficient, then “these five easy growing projects” could be just what you’re looking for.

They're the perfect excuse for you to get your gardening gloves on, and you can even get the kids in your life involved. They can see the fruits of their labour when you've finished growing the items.

Keen gardener Martha, who posts on TikTok as @marfskitchengarden, shared that you can “grow food in the smallest of spaces, all in containers”.

Check out her advice below...

1. Cucumbers

You can turn your window box into a planter to “grow cucumbers,” Martha shared. She said: “They are one thing that tastes so much better when you grow them yourself”.

2. Strawberries 

Martha shared that you can “use different-sized pots to make a strawberry tower” in your garden, regardless of the size of it.

She said that you can start this as early as winter when it’s “gloomy and grey,” and “by summer, you’ll be picking your own fresh strawberries”.

3. Baby salad leaves

Martha said that if you’ve never grown anything before, then this is the perfect project to start off with.

You just need a tray, “not a lot of compost,” and the seeds to grow the leaves. She explained that the salad leaves will be “ready to harvest in just a few weeks,” and if you “put them on shelves you can fit loads of trays in”.

4. Physalis

Martha said that there’s a “fruit you can grow in a single year from seed in a pot”. She explained: “The cute little lantern fruit are physalis. They taste kind of like tropical fruit, pineapple, and they are easy to grow. Delicious”.

5. Potatoes 

Martha described these as her “all-time favourite” to grow. “There’s literally nothing more fun than harvesting potatoes, and I’ve grown them in all kinds of containers and all kinds of soil”.

In the comments, someone asked: “What's the benefit of that strawberry tower except aesthetically?”

Another responded: “Strawberries like to grow across and will kill themselves wasting energy doing that, so it’s best to grow them vertically so they actually produce a decent amount of fruit and survive”.

“Potatoes are definitely really fun to harvest,” someone else agreed.