EVER longed to become more self-sufficient and eco-conscious by growing fruit and vegetables?

Have you fantasised about cutting down on those unnecessary food miles and reducing the amount of waste you throw away?

Cultivating your own crops and creating compost for them is perhaps not the unattainable dream you may have once thought.

Gardening guru Christine Walkden, best known for her regular appearances on BBC’s the One Show and Gardeners’ World, visits Colchester next Thursday to tell residents how to produce their own food.

“It’s as easy as opening an envelope of seeds, because that’s basically all you have to do,” declares Christine.

“I still marvel at it every time – putting something in the ground and growing it. It’s magic, and people forget that. You are creating a living thing.”

Christine believes she’s been through about 30,000 packets of seeds since she began gardening at the age of ten, and extols the virtues of growing produce.

“It’s enjoyable, it encourages you to take exercise and, if you are doing it in a community situation, it encourages you to be sociable,” she maintains. “The environmental and financial reasons are also very important in these times.

“Fresh vegetables taste better, as 20 minutes from garden to table is mega-fresh. And, of course, they are healthier, as no nasty pesticides are used.”

From simple salad crops, like lettuce and radishes, to the more difficult-to-grow cucumbers and melons, there is something for everyone to attempt.

You only need seeds, a container with holes and some compost.

“Anything with drainage holes, no matter what shape, is suitable,” says Christine, as she gestures towards a plastic coffee cup. “You could grow a pepper in that thing!

“You don’t even have to have a garden. You can grow in window boxes, in grow bags or on your window sill in a room.”

The main problem, she claims, is people’s lack of belief in their ability to succeed. “The golden rule is not to give up on the first attempt,” she says.

The other key ingredient is compost, and making it is an effective way of getting rid of waste.

Every year, households in England discard a million tonnes of waste that could be composted.

Vegetable peelings, egg shells, cereal boxes and paper can be composted. Avoid diseased and cooked food, or anything in flower.

Christine’s visit to Colchester is to help Essex County Council encourage residents to get creative in their gardens.

Although she grew up in Blackburn, Christine’s association with Essex goes back to the early Eighties, when she studied and lectured at Writtle College, near Chelmsford.

Residents will be treated to demonstrations from Christine, before being given free seeds.

“We’re encouraging people to compost at home,” says Emma Cocksedge, a recycling officer at the council.

“Some of the stuff that people throw away rots in landfill sites and produces methane gas, which contributes to global warming. We need to stop this happening.”

The council is offering reduced-rate compost bins from £22, in a bid to help more people produce their own compost.

Council officers are also reminding residents if they can’t compost at home, they can leave garden waste for kerbside collections, and people can buy green garden waste compost from the council’s recycling centres.

For more information, visit www.essex.gov.uk/recyclingcentres