MISS MONEYSAVER: My green fingered guide to growing your own fruit and vegetables 

The price of food is going up faster than most of our other bills. Figures published this week from the Office For National Statistics show that in the 12 months to January, prices rose by 16.8 per cent.

Add to that the news that Tesco, Asda, Aldi and Morrisons are rationing some fruit and veg due to lack of supplies and there has never been a better time to grow your own. And to help you on your way, the Mail has organised a bumper crop of offers so be sure to make the most of the coupons on the left of this page. You’ll save more than £100.

I only have a patio but I have pots of mint and chives and I’m planning on planting more herbs and, perhaps, some climbing vegetables and fruit up a trellis. You can grow French beans, peas, nasturtium flowers and strawberries this way.

Kitchen windowsills are ideal for growing all sorts of herbs.

One of the easiest things to grow, as you may remember from school, is cress. You don’t even need soil, just a damp piece of kitchen or toilet roll to sprinkle the seeds on. Then cover with cling film to keep the warmth in and to let the light through.

It will sprout in a few days and by the end of a week, it should have grown enough to harvest for a tasty egg sarnie.

Salad leaves planted in containers will also thrive on windowsills. Go for ‘baby leaf’ crops as they are the quickest and most prolific to grow, sowing the seeds thinly over the surface of a container filled with soil and compost.

Cover with a thin layer of compost and a sprinkling of water and you’ll soon have a side salad. Keep sowing through the summer.

For those with a garden, there are lots of step-by-step tutorials on YouTube to help you get a veg patch started. Just be prepared for a good deal of digging, tending and protecting from birds and insects to reap the benefits!

See the coupons on the left for a free ten-pack of seeds worth £19.99 to get your veg patch going.

If you have neighbours who are keen gardeners, do a seed or cuttings swap with them.

Or you could join a seed subscription service such as Potgang (potgang.co.uk/) for cheaper fruit and veg seeds.

The Royal Horticultural Society (rhs.org.uk) is a rich source of information on planting fruit and veg indoors. You can grow all sorts, from potatoes to pears. Fruit trees are good because they’re also decorative. You could plant a small apple tree, for example, in a large planter. Keep it watered and fed, in good soil, making sure it doesn’t get dry in the winter when you have the heating on, and it should flower and produce fruit as usual.

Apples ripen from late summer to late autumn, though it usually takes three years for a young tree to produce fruit.

You can even turn your food waste into a new crop. You can re-grow spring onions by keeping about an inch of the bottom (with the roots attached) and placing them in a shallow glass of water so that the tops aren’t submerged. Change the water every few days and the green shoots will grow back. You can then keep cutting what you need from the tops and the onions will carry on growing.

You can do something similar with celery and leeks. Take a look at videos on YouTube that show you how to grow from off-cuts.

It’s worth keeping an eye out for free containers on Freecycle.org, Nextdoor.com, the Olio app or Facebook Marketplace where people often give away pots and tools.

Another option for propagating seeds and delicate plants indoors is a small, table-top greenhouse. Fashionworld.co.uk does a mini one for £19 or you could get a larger one for a patio or balcony from Amazon for £18.20 (amazon.co.uk).

If you love tomatoes, you can buy easy-grow bags already planted that you just put on the patio or balcony. Then all you have to do is water and harvest. Suttons does a grow-bag collection with three varieties of tomatoes for £6.99 (suttons.co.uk)

If you have enough outside space, you could consider keeping chickens. My friend Wanda has four lovely hens on her land. She had to buy a coop with a run that is surrounded by wire mesh to protect them from foxes. But in return she gets four eggs a day and the chickens chomp their way through any peelings and leftovers, which helps cut down on food waste.

When bird flu regulations allow them to roam, they even help prepare her veg patch for spring by pecking at the weeds and fertilising the soil with their droppings during the winter months.

Wanda bought her hens for £15 each from a local farmer she found online, but you can also get former barn hens from the British Hen Welfare Trust (bhwt.org.uk). Older hens might not produce so many eggs as young ones but you will have the satisfaction of knowing you have given them a better life.

DON’T FORGET TO PEP UP YOUR PENSION  

Recently, talking to Steve Webb, the former pensions minister, he reminded me to remind you we all have until April 5 to top up our National Insurance (NI) payments going back to 2006.

From April 6 we’ll only be allowed to top up the last six years’ worth of NI, which still reaps rewards, but less so.

The point is that the more years of full payments we make (up to 35 years), the more money we will get from the state pension when we retire.

Recently, talking to Steve Webb, the former pensions minister, he reminded me to remind you we all have until April 5 to top up our National Insurance (NI) payments going back to 2006 (File image_

So it’s really worthwhile paying any NI we’ve missed, even just a few weeks in the year to make it complete, if you’re unlikely to reach the 35 years.

This is, of course, for people who haven’t retired yet, so if that’s you, go and check on gov.uk to see if you have some years (back to 2006) where you haven’t paid your full NI.

As Steve (now a partner with LCP pension analysts) says: ‘For those who can benefit, investing in state pension top-ups can generate a better ‘rate of return’ than almost any other way of using savings.

‘Someone with ten missing years could pay out a little over £8,000 to fix the gaps but see a boost of £55,000 in state pension over a typical 20-year retirement.’

To check your records, just go to the National Insurance page on Gov.uk (gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record).

Annoyingly, you have to put in your Government Gateway ID and password.

To top up, go to the page on paying voluntary contributions (gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/deadlines) and follow the instructions for Class 2 and Class 3 NI.

Save a packet on food close to its best before date

The website approvedfood.co.uk is a great resource for cut-price food that is close to its best-before date. Now you can order packets, tins and jars of good stuff to eat at an even greater discount if you use their code ‘Onlineten’ at the checkout to get an extra 10 pc off. The offer lasts until 10am on March 4 and there’s a minimum spend of £22.50. Only one use per customer and can’t be used with other codes (apart from ‘free over £55’).  

Sainsbury’s is selling £2 fruit and vegetable boxes containing a variety of surplus groceries that would otherwise go to waste. These ‘Taste Me, Don’t Waste Me’ boxes will be available in more than 200 supermarkets across the country in the fresh produce aisles. 

The savings and payment app HyperJar (hyperjar.com) has some special offers for people who pay with the app. You can get up to 25 per cent off Samsung products, 35 per cent off Domino’s Pizza (£40 minimum spend online) and get £5 back when you spend £50 at Decathlon. Also, your money attracts 4.8 per cent while they are in any of the app’s commercial ‘jars’ waiting to be spent. 

A company co-founded by the Big Issue magazine has launched a free app to let you see all your finances in one place. The Big Exchange’s app (bigexchange.com/our-app) helps you link bank accounts, investments, savings accounts, property, car costs, debt, pension and more to give you full oversight. Its ‘rental recognition’, feature makes your rental payments count towards your credit score.