Grow 6
Our campaign
Wherever we grow food, from a windowsill at home to land in our local community, it can be fun, and good for nature, our climate and us. If you are new to growing or want to grow more ‘fruitfully’, and to grow something fresh and nutritious to eat year-round, Grow6 can help.
It can be overwhelming to start and keep growing, so Grow 6 keeps it simple with six crops that grow well in Scotland in a range of settings, and information and tips gleaned from Scottish growers on each crop. You can develop skills and knowledge and build your food-growing confidence with inspiration to keep growing.
The Grow 6 campaign ran from Spring 2023-2024 with real time growing advice supporting folk new to growing at home or in community settings to try growing some food in our changeable Scottish weather. Whilst the ‘real-time’ function is no longer supported you can use the crop cards, scroll past updates or click on the links below to see if you have a growing space near you to learn and practice. If you have a ‘top tip’ or particular variety you know grows well here, in Scotland, please let us know. These crop cards change at the start of the year for spring/summer crops and at the end of the summer for crops to grow through winter.
What to grow?
Berries
Classic Scottish fruit, bursting with flavour and vitamins, some form of berry should be included in every growing space. Strawberries can be grown in containers, from pots to hanging baskets; raspberries, currants, and gooseberries do best in fertile open ground.
Herbs
In a small garden or big pot, if you like to cook, perennial (grow for several years) herbs are perhaps the best plant you can grow to eat and support wildlife- woody herbs such as sage, marjoram and thyme produce flowers the bees go wild for.
Peas
The perfect vegetable to grow, pick and eat straight from the plant and the more you pick they more they produce! There are lots of types to choose from podded or mangetout/sugarsnap (where you eat the whole pod), tall or dwarf, and for edible and something beautiful too the purple podded ones are lovely.
Tatties
Why not? The trusty Scottish staple with so many types and tastes to choose from. If you try growing one thing make it the tattie!
Tomatoes
For new growers bush tomatoes are by far the best tomatoes to grow with our unpredictable summers. Small fruits ripen faster in the late summer months and bush types don’t require support or much maintenance.
Greens
Mixed leaf lettuce, lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, rockets and lambs lettuce can all be grown in our Scottish climate.