Grow Your Own Tortoise Food in the UK

Thirty-nine of the 105 foods in our records will grow in a British garden, and they are concentrated exactly where you want them.

Read that bottom half again. Almost everything worth feeding regularly can be grown. Almost nothing you would buy in a supermarket can be. That is the argument for this page in a single table.

Why grow your own

• You control what has been sprayed on it. Garden centre plants arrive pesticide-treated and supermarket produce is an unknown. Home-grown is the only category where you actually know.
• You know what the plant is. Identification stops being a risk when you sowed it yourself.
• It is cheaper. Weed and wildflower seed costs a few pounds and returns for years.
• It solves winter partly. A cold frame or greenhouse extends the season at both ends, which is when British keepers struggle most.
• It lets the tortoise browse. A planted pen means the animal selects for itself across many plants, which is far closer to natural feeding than a bowl.

The Tortoise Trust’s approach with Mediterranean species is to plant the enclosure with an edible mix and provide no supplemental food at all through the growing season. Tortoises kept that way hold a healthy weight without the overfeeding a daily bowl encourages.

Best plants for UK gardens

Start with these six. All rated for regular feeding, all straightforward to establish.

Add flowers. Five are rated regular, and tortoises take them enthusiastically.

• Viola and pansy (Viola spp.), long flowering season, easy from seed or plug
• Violet (Viola spp.), shade tolerant, perennial
• Calendula (Calendula spp.), the pot marigold, not the French Tagetes
• Campanula (Campanula spp.), good enclosure planting
• Hibiscus (Hibiscus spp.), needs shelter in Britain, worth the effort

Add herbs. Mint and thyme are both rated regular. Mint spreads aggressively, so containers or a sunk barrier are wise.

For grazing species, all five grasses are UK-growable. A Sulcata or leopard pen sown with meadow grass, couch, barley or wheat grass gives you living grazing. See grass and hay for tortoises.

Rotation plants worth including: dandelion, clover, chickweed, bramble, nettle, corn salad, chicory, cornflower and nasturtium.

Seed mixes against individual plants

Check the species list on any mix before buying. A wildflower mix sold for pollinators may contain plants that are not tortoise food, and a few that are on our avoid list. Buttercup turns up in meadow mixes regularly. Cross-check unfamiliar names against the food checker before sowing.

Mixes marketed specifically for tortoises are usually safer on this point, but the same check costs nothing.

Growing in pots and containers

You do not need a garden.

• Deep pots for taproots. Dandelion, plantain and chicory all send down a long root and resent shallow containers.
• Window boxes suit chickweed, corn salad and low-growing weeds.
• A single large tub planted with mallow will supply a small tortoise through summer.
• Mint in its own container, always, unless you want it everywhere.
• Succession sow. Two or three pots started a few weeks apart keeps supply steady rather than arriving all at once.
• Cut and come again. Most of these plants regrow from harvested leaves, so one pot yields repeatedly.

Seasonal planting

Perennials including mallow, violet, mint and thyme come back on their own, so the effort is front-loaded into the first year.

Winter remains the hard part. Growing extends the season rather than eliminating the gap, and dried forage still matters from November. See winter feeding.

Pesticide safety

This is the reason many people start growing in the first place, so it is worth doing properly.

• Never use weed killer, lawn feed, weed and feed, or moss killer anywhere a tortoise has access, or on ground you intend to harvest from.
• No slug pellets. Use barriers, beer traps or hand removal instead.
• Garden centre plants are treated as standard. Systemic pesticides are absorbed into the tissue and cannot be washed off. Pot the plant on and harvest only new growth after several weeks.
• Grow from seed where you can. It sidesteps the problem entirely.
• Watch your neighbours’ spraying if your beds are near a boundary.
• Rinse everything anyway, home-grown included.

Harvesting and rotation

• Take young leaves. More palatable, and the plant recovers faster.
• Never strip a plant. Take a third at most and let it regrow.
• Do not chop finely. Fibre length matters. Whole leaves ferment more slowly than shredded ones, and that is the direction you want. The reasoning is in Mediterranean tortoise diet.
• Pick fresh. Weeds wilt quickly and get refused once limp.
• Rotate what you cut, so no single plant dominates the bowl for weeks.
• Let a planted pen coarsen through summer. Drier, tougher growth is normal food rather than a shortage, particularly for Mediterranean species.

If growing is not practical, fresh mixes delivered by specialist growers do a similar job. See fresh tortoise food, and dried tortoise food for the winter fibre question.

For identification before you sow or harvest, see best weeds for tortoises and safe flowers for tortoises. The complete banded list is in the tortoise food chart.

Ratings follow our own food records, built from the Tortoise Trust, the British Chelonia Group, The Tortoise Table plant database and published veterinary sources, and checked as described in our sources and review policy. This is husbandry information rather than clinical advice. See our veterinary disclaimer.

Last reviewed: September 2026.