Goals: Grow food

A fortnight of spectacle and then a head of seed the birds will take.

Edible flowers and leaves, and a magnet that pulls aphids off your vegetables.

Regrows from the root end of a shop-bought bunch — the cheapest crop there is.

Plant single cloves in October and lift whole bulbs in March.

Grown from sets or seedlings; needs depth, sun and patience.

A small tree that lives happily in a deep pot and gives leaves all year.

Jowar — drought-hardy grain and fodder in one, on almost no inputs.

One of the small millets of tribal central India, quick and undemanding.

An old and quick millet, sown as a catch crop when the rains come late.

A hill millet that tolerates waterlogging better than any other grain.