Self-sufficiency has become a buzzword in recent years, as more and more people turn to growing their own vegetables and fruit, both to save money and for the pleasure and sense of reward it brings. But how much is it really possible to grow if you don’t own a lot of land? It’s a question that inspired Huw Richards and Sam Cooper to run an experiment to see whether they could become self-sufficient over a year in food grown on a plot the size of an average UK garden.
Richards, whose YouTube and Instagram gardening videos have had more than 100 million views in total, calculated that they could grow 365kg of food over one year from a site measuring just 10m x 12.5m. So they decided to write a book about the experiment – a practical self-help guide to show people how they can grow their own and what to do with it in the kitchen, advising growers on how to cope with gluts and shortages from their plot, including how to interchange ingredients and combine flavours.
“I want to free people from rigid recipes by talking about how flavours interact with each other,” says Cooper, 35, a professional chef and author. “We don’t like the idea that recipes dictate what people are growing. It should be the other way round. So you go into the garden, pick what is ready, then go into the kitchen and think, ‘What am I making now?’ It’s land-first cooking.”
“It’s a forage-first mentality. Forage first, create later,” says Richards, 25, an author who also started his own YouTube gardening channel when he was 12. He has 796,000 subscribers on YouTube and 192,000 followers on Instagram.
Growing your own ensures a food supply, saves money and provides “fresh air, exercise, nutrition and the best flavours”, says Cooper, who has 559,000 followers on Instagram as Chef Sam Black. “With any homegrown crop you will taste the world of difference – and with no pesticides or plastic wrapping.”
The idea for the experiment first took root after the pair met in late 2019. Richards had already been thinking about extending his gardening tips into the kitchen, so he asked Cooper to join forces with him on his YouTube channel.
Last year, they decided to run a self-sufficiency experiment with a target of growing 365kg of produce on their 10m x 12.5m plot over a year, and to record their experience. The plot is on a site they have leased in Aberystwyth, Wales, where they both live. The experiment follows Richards’s three basic tenets: “How to create a healthy soil; how succession planting works; how to be flexible in the kitchen. There are other things, but those are the Holy Trinity of self-sufficiency skills.”
Laying the groundwork
Before you attempt to grow anything, you need to prepare your soil.
“It’s the foundation. It’s better to grow less in higher-quality soil than more in low quality,” says Richards. “To address almost any problem you encounter in the garden you need to add organic matter to the soil, such as well-rotted manure and compost, because that’s going to balance it out.”
Planning is also key. Richards drew up a detailed month-by-month planting plan for more than 50 crop varieties. About 80 per cent are vegetables, 10 per cent herbs, and 10 per cent fruit.
“Fruit is a lot less productive, so it’s a nice supplementary thing,” he says. He selected vegetable varieties for their ease of growth, taste and productivity – for example, vegetables offering more than one food source, such as onions, whose leaves can be eaten as an alternative to spring onions, and beetroot, whose leaves can also be eaten, as well as the root.
Food for all seasons
The first seeds were sown on March 1 2023. Richards’s plan covers year-round growing, including using handmade hotbeds – where organic matter decomposes in an enclosed frame – to enable you to sow seeds in March to harvest in April and May, such as radish, pea shoots, spinach, carrots and turnips. They also save costs: “With celery, peppers and anything that usually requires bottom heating and electrics, you can just germinate them in a hotbed instead,” says Richards.
A polytunnel allows the harvesting of salad leaves and fresh greens such as purple sprouting broccoli and cabbage in the winter. It is also used to sow seeds in February for an early start, such as field beans, cauliflowers and onions.
Knowing how to succession-grow is crucial, says Richards: “When you have a smaller space, you’re forced to think more carefully about every square foot. As soon as a crop comes out, I already have the seedlings of another crop to plant. There’s no such thing as bare ground in the growing season.”
Instead of their target of growing 365kg, they achieved just under 600kg. That excludes the weight of their hefty marrows, says Richards, because “that would have been cheating”.
“I didn’t quite appreciate how much food could be grown in such a small space,” he admits.
At one stage, the plot suffered an eight-week drought in April and May, and Richards feared that they would fail even to reach the 365kg. In the event, he lost just one crop: his celery ran to seed due to a lack of water.
Cooper, however, remained sanguine throughout, because he had witnessed the hard work Richards was putting in.
“There was definitely a nervous point for Huw when he wasn’t sure whether he’d hit the target, whereas I had more confidence in him,” he says. “I’d seen the amount of planning that had gone into it and how structured it had been. Huw experiments a lot, he’s always trying different things and he takes care of the soil almost more than anything else. There’s a huge amount going into producing compost, and the quality of that compost.”
The book is just a guide, they say. People can do as little or as much as they feel able, and build up over time. If you do not feel up to the book’s various DIY projects, which include building hot, raised and hoop beds, you could always “call a friend”, suggests Richards.
It makes sense to grow vegetables you enjoy eating, adds Cooper: “If you feel passionate about them you will naturally take care of them because it’s not a chore.”
Which will also help you persevere past that moment when you realise that “you’re at the mercy of Mother Nature and the seasons”, as Richards points out. “You never know when an early or a late frost or a pest might strike.”
How much it costs
Richards compared the cost of buying vegetables at two supermarkets with the cost of growing his own, looking at the average price you’d pay for the 600kg of vegetables the project eventually generated (that’s nearly ten times the amount an adult might get through in a year).
The first year of growing your own
Richards and Cooper’s costs for the first year totalled £4,100, including full set-up expense of hotbeds, raised beds, polytunnels, seeds, plants, compost, topsoil and tools: This is the cost of using premium products for their visual effect, to achieve an attractive garden. If you used cheaper and scrap wood, built raised beds without sides, and bought less expensive but still good-quality products, such as Premier Seeds, you could probably achieve the same growing results for £1,900, says Richards.
Subsequent years of growing your own
Richards and Cooper’s costs for the second year and thereafter were £250. Although their garden is self-sufficient in homemade compost, Richards has put aside £50 for shop-bought, peat-free multi-purpose compost for seed sowing; £100 for more seeds if needed, although you should be able to use leftover seeds from last year’s packets; and £100 for emergencies.
You should not need to replace any hardware for about 10 years.
Varieties to grow
Huw Richards says: “There is less focus on varieties just for their flavour in the book, because we’re looking at the reliability of crops for productivity. We’re looking at feeding people first and foremost. I was also choosing varieties that are easily accessible for people to buy. I want people to have success with these first, then they can explore the different varieties, perhaps the rarer ones. No matter where you are in the UK, you’ll be able to go to your garden centre and find these seeds. It’s also about expense, because a lot of rare varieties are more expensive.”
Flavour does, of course, also count, he says: ”If you haven’t grown beetroot before, for example, you suddenly realise, ‘Oh wow, it doesn’t taste dirty, it has some sweetness’; and there’s the delight of when you taste that first homegrown tomato.”
