Inspired by re-runs of The Good Life, city folk are turning "green" all over again. When I lived the single life in a first-floor flat, I thought the country was somewhere you visited for the occasional day out. Surely no one actually lived there! But in the mid 1970's I read John Seymour's The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency and became hooked on the idea of working at not actually working.

Do you dream of becoming a self-sufficient smallholder even though you can cross your entire "estate" in three strides? Does your local authority have a waiting list for its allotments that's so long it's like queuing up for a dead man's wellies?

That needn't be a problem - container gardening can provide a sizeable proportion of your family's food needs. And you can even keep livestock in a small space if you choose wisely.

Cast your mind back to your childhood. Did you ever grow mustard and cress on a kitchen windowsill? Indoor growing is even more satisfying nowadays, with seed merchants able to supply sprouting seeds for stir-fries and salads all year round.

In general, it's best to adopt a three-pronged method when ordering from gardening catalogues. Base your choice on the three criteria of decorative appeal, heavy cropping and suitability for a small space. The modern nurseryman can supply a wide variety of dwarf fruit trees. Ken Muir's catalogue offers "duo-minarettes". Described as "the ultimate space-saving patio trees", they feature two varieties of apple or pear on a single vertical stem. And they can be planted as little as 60cm apart.

Versatility is another important consideration. Decorative vegetables such as golden courgettes and salad bowl lettuces can be incorporated into flower borders and container arrangements. Plants normally grown for their decorative appeal, such as pot marigolds (the clue is in the name) and nasturtiums, can also have a culinary use. Herbs, such as chives, can bring welcome colour to a flower border. And as well as looking decorative in the flower border, purple thyme is useful in the kitchen.

Of all the things you can do with a bucket, growing watercress is probably one you never thought of. Contrary to popular belief, watercress doesn't need running water for it to thrive. Take a plastic bucket and half-fill it with a mixture of brick rubble and chalk pieces, topped with a layer of moss. Fill the top half with general purpose compost mixed with leaf mould. Buy a bunch of watercress and set pieces as cuttings about 8cm apart. Keep them well watered, preferably with rainwater, and leave the container in a sunny spot. The first crop should be ready in five or six weeks. You can harvest the upper growth with scissors while the remaining root portions will go on to produce fresh growth.

Be Frugal

City smallholders need to cultivate the habit of being so frugal that they never throw anything away - not too far away, at any rate. It's true you can buy mushroom growing kits, but I've never thought they were particularly good value. If you have some bought mushrooms that are past their best, throw them into a damp, dark corner of your garden and forget about them. When the conditions are right, you'll be rewarded with a fresh crop of mushrooms when you least expect it.

Bush tomatoes can be raised outdoors in tubs or growing bags, as can lettuce and a wide variety of herbs. Westland supply a growing bag that has a layer of water retaining gel in the bottom - an important consideration if you have no outside tap. Other crops that can be successfully container grown include potatoes, strawberries, radishes, dwarf beans and peppers. Again, if you're really short of space, culinary herbs can be grown in pots on your windowsill - alongside the mustard and cress.

The Only Way is Up!

When you run out of horizontal space, the only way is up. If you already have a cooking apple tree, try growing a thornless blackberry through its branches. A "blackberry-and-apple tree" could make an interesting talking point.

One invaluable money-saving device I've used over the years is to "buy" produce from myself. Every time I harvest a crop, I set aside a small percentage of what I would have paid in the shops. The money can then be used for seeds, growing bags and compost.

Make your garden ornaments work for you. The most a garden gnome can do is fish your pond. But a few bantam hens will look decorative and keep your garden pest free, as well as rewarding you with eggs on an almost daily basis.

But for consistently producing an egg a day with scarcely a break, you can't beat Khaki Campbell ducks. Naturally, ducks need water, but it doesn't have to be a lake - they're just as happy on a small pond. You'll just have to forget about growing water lilies or keeping goldfish.

Take Up Bee Keeping

According to popular folklore, when a bee alights on your hand it means money is coming your way. If it inspires you to take up beekeeping, it's almost certainly true, as there's money in honey! You can visit the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) web site to obtain membership details and to locate your nearest member association. Or you can write, enclosing an A5 sae. And E H Thorne (Beehives) Ltd will prove helpful when it comes to start-up advice.

A colony of bees can be kept in a small backyard or on a balcony or rooftop. I once knew a man who successfully kept bees on an office roof in the City of London. They foraged in the local parks and gardens and kept their owner well supplied with honey. The only disadvantage was that the yield sometimes came in strange colours because the bees drank from the soft drinks cans discarded by tourists. Given the right marketing strategy, perhaps Soda Pop Honey could be a commercial success of the future.

With a shoestring budget and a little careful planning the city smallholder can reap a taste of the good life from his own backyard or balcony. He need never again see himself as a poor relation to his country cousins.

The British Beekeepers Association Tel: 02476 696679 EH Thorne Tel: 01673 858555 Ken Muir Tel: 0870 74 79 111