Caroline Quentin answers your questions

What is the best way to grow vegetables?

Ratna, West Midlands

I like to grow them in the earth if I can, but lots of veg can thrive in pots. If you’re a beginner just starting to grow your own veg, start with something that you eat. Don’t ever try to grow something you’re not interested in because you’ll never bother to harvest it and it’ll go to seed. When you eat your first homegrown tomato, though, it’ll taste like heaven and you’ll be bitten by the gardening bug.

When beginners come to me, I will start them on lettuce, tomatoes, a bit of garlic and onion. Things that you’d like to eat and you’ll use in everything. Salad crops, actually, are brilliant for children, because they come up in about 30 seconds, and you don’t have to deal with that question, “Is it up yet?” These germinate so fast that soon you can say, “Yes! Let’s eat!”

Just get them in and grow all different kinds. They’re so expensive to buy but so easy to grow. I’d recommend rocket, mizuna, lambs lettuce, radicchio. So many glorious leaves, so many colours and so simple to grow yourself.

The best vegetables for beginners are the ones where you sprinkle the seeds onto a flat surface with earth in it, it grows, and then you’ll be eating it.

What are the best plants to get that don’t need much looking after?

Colin, South East

I’ve been working with some plants that don’t need any looking after. If you’re clever and you’ve got your reading glasses, you can put Lego Botanicals together very quickly (my favourites are the pink roses). Otherwise, I suppose it’s the cacti and succulents.

What would you recommend for someone who only has a balcony and not a garden?

Anna, North West

Oh, you can grow loads on a balcony. Check that your balcony will take the weight of pots or grow bags. Then use the vertical space too, for climbers like cucumbers, and I’ve even heard of folk growing melons on their balconies.

I’ve always grown bamboo in London because at night when the wind blows through it, there’s a really beautiful rustling sound coming through. It’s enough to break up the sound of traffic.

Phyllostachys Nigra is a dark brown bamboo and I would grow that anywhere, actually, wherever I was living, but only in a pot because it’ll run you ragged. It sets out runners, and you’ll never get rid of it; you’ll be chopping down for the rest of your life. So, in a nice big pot, bamboo.