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About Rocket Gardens, Cornwall3 Steps to Growing Your Own Vegetablesgift ideas from rocket gardensrocket gardens for schools projectcontact rocket gardenshomepage

3 Steps to Growing Your Own


1. Prepare your garden
2. Visit www.rocketgardens.co.uk and choose your instant vegetable garden.
3. Pop in your plants and watch them grow!

Everyone has differing opinions on the best ways to grow vegetables and for this reason we haven’t tried to explain everything about the processes on our Rocket Gardens website. Some plants are easier to grow than others and some will grow better in one soil type, location, and so on than another. For this reason if you are at all unsure we recommend that if you haven’t got a book on the subject now may be the time to get hold of one!

Joy Larkcom’s book Grow Your Own Vegetables does pack a huge amount of useful information into a small book it includes plenty of organic techniques.

Rocket Gardens plants and products are aimed at removing a large amount of the labour element from growing your own and for many the most time consuming and difficult - that first stage of seedling establishment. Using Rocket Gardens seedlings also eliminates the requirement for much of the usual essential collection of gardening equipment, garden, greenhouse and shed space etc.

Preparing your garden

There are numerous ways that the vegetable garden can be prepared prior to planting your Rocket Gardens seedlings. Some methods are more time consuming than others. Due to the infinitely variable nature of our customers gardens only a summary of techniques are described below. Further information can be found on the growing guides pages - click here.

Traditional plot- where the whole area is cultivated with plants normally grown in rows.

It is important that soil condition and fertility is as good as possible. An excellent method of natural improvement is by applying worm cast fertiliser - click here

Raised beds – is a popular technique where a series of beds are divided by permanent paths. Advantages include the fact that there are no muddy tracks between the plants and the closeness of the vegetables smothers most weeds.

Containers / window boxes – are ideal if space is limited. Many vegetables and herbs can be successfully grown in containers depending upon size of the container and its location. Examples of plants that will grow successfully in containers include: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, dwarf and runner beans, salad lettuces, courgettes (in a large container), brassicas, leeks etc. Most herbs will grow extremely well in a well sited container.

Plant out your seedlings and watch them grow!

When your ground is well prepared it is simply a matter of spacing and planting your seedlings correctly to create your instant growing vegetable garden. If you are using one of our starter veg packs here are a couple of suggested garden layouts that may help you make decisions.

  • Click here to see a plan for small gardens 4m x 2.5m

  • Click here to see a plan for larger gardens 4m x 5m


    • Even if choose your own layout it will help you with suggested spacing for various popular vegetables.

    Our plants are grown in biodegradable pots which are designed to be planted directly into the ground. There is no need to remove the pots as they will break down naturally as the plant grows. Some people prefer removing the pots before planting out. If you do decide to do this make sure you remove the pots extremely carefully in order to minimize root disturbance.You will notice in most instances the plants root system will already have grown through the pot wall - this is normal and to be expected.

    If you live in an area where there is a risk of cool night time temperatures or frost it may be a good idea to cover certain plants with horticultural fleece during the early part of the season. This also provides the added benefit of keeping off unwanted pests!

    If you are not keen on weeding then you may wish to try growing your plants through a weed resistant ground cover sheet. The sheet should be laid over your prepared ground and secured firmly along its outer edges. Holes of a suitable diameter should be cut wherever a plant is spaced and planted. This technique doesn’t look so pretty but it can cut down on time spent in the garden.