At the other end of the spectrum from the fruit tree at least, is sprouting. It's dead easy (I think I could manage, but luckily my fiancee got bitten by some

At the other end of the spectrum from the fruit tree at least, is sprouting. It's dead easy (I think I could manage, but luckily my fiancee got bitten by some kind of sprouting-bug lately), doesn't require much space (the window sill is perfect) and very cheap. Around here, a mini tub of store-bought sprouts can run around €1.5 (say, $2). That buys probably around 500 g of dried mung beans, which will give a volume of sprouts that easily beats the store-bought pack by a factor of, oh, 50 is probably very conservative. It's almost scary, at first. We cheat and use a sprouter (a small plastic container with two levels of strainer shelves, a bottom, and a transparent lid) that was around €10-15, so it'll take a while to get our investment back. For the impatient, sprouting is of course also very fast, you'll be harvesting in a manner of days.