The Art of Green Finance

There are a few ways to get food for free throughout the year that can help stretch the weekly food budget…

Try regrowing food from leftovers. This works well for spring onions, leeks, lettuce, celery and fennel.

For other fruit and veg, save the seeds and grow the following year. This works well for tomatoes and peppers. Or try this neat trick in spring.

Find your local allotment and try taking evening walks nearby in summer. Lots of allotmenteers leave their excess produce on a table near the allotment for people to help themselves. Then you just need plenty of courgette recipes!

In August, go blackberry picking. Blackberries are easy to recognise and therefore a good option for a first foraging outing. They can be baked into a budget friendly crumble or preserved as jam – this link shows you how to make super easy jam in around 20 minutes using a microwave.

In September, try an online search to see if you have a local community orchard where you can harvest apples or other fruit for free. Lots of community orchards have an “Apple Day” in September or October where you might also be able to help with apple pressing and leave with some fresh apple juice.

Finally, you could consider “chicken-sitting”, looking after your neighbours’ chickens while they are away on holiday in exchange for free eggs.