THE kitchen garden will take on a whole new meaning shortly with the arrival of salads, herbs, and vegetables intended to be grown and cropped in troughs, tubs, and pots, on the windowsill.

Some of them may even grace the dining room table.

First in the range will be different kinds of lettuce grown in troughs on a cut-and-come-again basis. Put a trough on the table with a pair of kitchen scissors and the family can help themselves or perhaps make up their own salads.

There are plans well advanced for the mass marketing of the 25cm troughs which can be expected in the garden centres any time now. They should crop over a long period. A similar line in windowsill herbs is also in preparation with several collections of different herbs per tub.

This could be just the start. There is a vast range of salad leaf varieties that could be adapted to the windowsill garden.

Adventurous gardeners will be keen to experiment themselves by sowing well as growing their own kitchen crops.

Readers of old may recall an experiment of mine some years ago when I told of growing baby cos lettuce in ordinary plant pots. The aim was to produce table decorations for a barbecue party but in the end the guests ate the lot!

The secret lies in producing plug plants in cool conditions, sowing the seed in a tray of individual cells, thinned on germination to one seedling per cell so that a substantial root can form and will not be disturbed on transplanting. The compost at both sowing and transplanting stages must be well-prepared and sterilised to avoid soilborne pest and disease problems but a proprietary brand or the contents of a growing bag will be entirely suitable.

The lessons are obvious for all sorts of container-grown vegetables, whether intended for kitchen cropping or growing on the patio. The importance of good, healthy compost cannot be over-emphasised, nor can the need to choose the right varieties which will be quickly maturing types to raise in containers with sufficient depth and adequate moisture. A combination of windowsill gardening and patio gardening opens up great scope.

Raising tomatoes and cucumbers in growing bags in a "concrete" garden is quite common and it is no more difficult to grow other salad stuffs, spring onions, peppers, aubergines, endive, leaf beet, beetroot, baby carrots, French beans or even runner beans. For the gourmet touch, you can grow your own garlic.

Many gardeners grow stirfry collections of vegetables in patio gardens. Some of the increasingly popular oriental vegetables are perfectly suited to the conditions I have mentioned - even Chinese cabbage, provided that you don't choose one of the giant varieties.

Using a good compost with well-balanced nutrients means the plants get a healthy and vigorous start. A little liquid manure is all that will be needed, perhaps fortnightly, unless you are growing really greedy feeders like tomatoes. In all cases you cannot fall if you follow the sort of instructions that come with growing bags.

Lots of gardeners buy growing bags without using them as such. It's one of the cheapest ways of buying a good moisture-retentive compost. Be warned, though, that the compost is usually lightweight and plants grown in pots need a good anchor to ensure that they don't topple over.

All sorts of fruit, including apples and pears, are quite suitable for containers, provided the subject is small enough, the container large enough and the compost healthy enough. Strawberry tubs, of course, are immensely popular and some fruit, figs for instance, are likely to grow better in a tub than in an open garden.

Most kitchen herbs make for delightful hanging baskets, especially the aromatic subjects likely to provide attractive scent with the slightest breeze.