Growing fresh vegetables on a balcony or in a garden can be a great way to connect with nature while staying at home.

At Syngenta, we have 150 years of experience in breeding and growing vegetables, and our experts are incredibly passionate about plants. With most of them working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, they have turned their balconies or terraces into productive small gardens and have many tips to share.

Even if you are a beginner, you can grow your own fresh produce using food scraps, such as leftover potatoes, onions and garlic. Our expert Akos gives you tips on how to plant radishes, lettuce, carrots, herbs and many more.

What you need to start gardening at home:

• Plant pots, or even a bucket or a tin
• Seeds, or leftovers like onions, garlic, potatoes
• Soil 
• Water 
• Sunlight

How to grow potatoes from the scraps in your kitchen:

Select raw potatoes from your pantry that already have small shoots growing out of them. If you don’t have many, you can cut them in half; just make sure you have some shoots on each half.

• Put the potatoes on top of 12-15 cm of soil, with the shoots pointing up.
• Cover them with 3-5 cm of soil. 
• Add 3-5 cm more soil each time the shoots have grown above the surface. 
• Keep going until you fill the entire container. 
• The potatoes are ready for harvesting after the plants flower and turn yellow.

How to grow lettuce in pots or outside

With its wide sowing window from March until August and just a 4 weeks harvest time, lettuce is one of the easiest vegetables to grow during the coronavirus pandemic.

For more expert gardening advice, you can follow Akos Balogh on X (formerly Twitter) @NescioVulgaris #AskAkos.