Lemon pudding with locally grown strawberries; salads sprinkled with edible flowers from community gardens; foraged elderflower champagne … locally sourced produce is increasingly on the menu at restaurants and on sale in markets and shops. So if you've got a glut of gooseberries or a rash of raspberries and radishes, perhaps you could make some money from them.
Several projects have sprung up with the aim of helping people gain an income off the land. The bad news is that you're unlikely to make enough to give up the day job – but selling your surplus should make tending the veg plot more worthwhile.
BigBarn and Crunchd are resources to help growers sell produce, the latter being a social network, with a website and app, which allows seasoned gardeners and novices to swap advice and trade produce.
Founder Tony Montague, an ex-City trader, says: "Growers can swap and sell produce, and if they want to sell on a bigger scale can meet up and pool their resources so they have enough produce to sell to restaurants, for example."
Individual sellers may find it easier to sell to a shop if they join BigBarn's Crop for the Shop initiative. BigBarn is a community interest company that connects customers with independent food retailers and producers (you can also buy groceries on the site), while Crop for the Shop is designed to help you get involved. It has an online local food map where you can search for independent retailers, advice on how to sell, and basic documents to download, such as an agreement between a grower and a retailer.
Typically, retailers sell produce a third cheaper than at the supermarket, and the grower gets 70% of the retail value of sales, given in credit to spend in the shop. BigBarn founder Anthony Davison says: "Giving retail credit instead of cash helps boosts sales at independent retailers and keeps money in the local community."
Other places to sell produce are local markets, farmers markets (stalls can typically cost £35, so you may need to team up with other growers), car boot sales, fetes, festivals, restaurants and cafes.
There are also new food markets that encourage individuals to sell, such as the recently opened Crystal Palace Food Market. Rachel de Thample, author of More Veg, Less Meat, is one of the organisers: "Anyone can grow for the market. People arrive with bin bags of spinach from the allotment, chilli plants they've grown indoors and handfuls of herbs and lettuces from their window boxes."
The market sells bags of mixed leaves for £1 per 100g compared to about £1.50 at supermarkets (for non-organic). Packets of lettuce seeds cost less than £1 for 100.
If you want to get your pea shoots on to the specials board of your local restaurant, however, you need to start networking, says Matt Smee, co-founder of Cheshire-based growers Natural Veg Men. "Build relationships with local chefs; find out what they want to buy, see if you can grow it. Let them sample your produce before you ask them to put in an order," he says.
Cafes, pubs and restaurants are often able to take small amounts of produce for their specials, so there's no pressure to supply huge, regular orders. Even if you have only a tiny space you can still make it work. Pick a sought-after crop and you are more likely to be profitable.
Sophie Davies, author of Design, Grow, Sell , a guide to running a garden business from your home, says: "There's a market for home growers producing very specialist items such as herbs or nasturtium and borage flowers to decorate salads."
Crops that are expensive to buy can be easy to grow, says author and gardener Mark Diacono. He suggests asparagus, herbs and chillies: "These are transformer plants because despite being little in volume they are big on flavour." Other ideas include rocket, spinach and pak choi.
Those growing on a larger scale can sell via co-operatives like Manchester Veg People, which supplies restaurants and shops. Deb Burton, 47, has sold baby sorrel leaves to the Aumbry restaurant in Manchester. She is working on Farmstart, an initiative which rents out land and trains growers to sell crops, and which sells produce through Manchester Veg People.
"I never thought I'd be able to grow, let alone sell, produce," she says. "It's not going to make millions, but I'm hoping one day I'll earn a proper income from it."
Know the rules
Sell some courgettes to your neighbours and there's no need to inform HMRC. But you do need to let it know if it's more of a business. Its website lists several "badges of trade", which determine whether you are considered a trader.
An HMRC spokesperson says: "Going to the market every day with a pile of produce to make money means you are trading – you need to let us know and pay tax on profits."
There is much discussion about the legality and ethics of selling allotment-grown produce. The Allotments Act 1922 has a general prohibition on any "trade or business" being conducted on an allotment. But allotments are allowed to have an allotment shop, which councils tend to regard as fund-raising rather than a business.
Some interpret the law to mean that while you cannot trade at the allotment, you can sell surplus produce away from the site. In general, the spirit of the law is that commercial growers shouldn't use council-operated sites as a low-cost way to operate a business.
If you are an occasional seller of produce you don't need a food hygiene certificate, but you must make sure the food is safe. However, the Food Standards Agency says that if you are a business you do need to register – selling at markets and shops may require council registration.
But even pint-sized entrepreneurs are giving it a go: some schools are growing produce to sell at local markets and fundraisers, and Waitrose has launched a scheme where pupils are given seeds and are able to sell produce in stores.
