What’s great about growing produce is that we can start off really small, so small in fact that even a lowly windowsill is a great place to begin. For those that live in apartment blocks, a windowsill or a verandah provides enough space to save you both dollars and helps us feel better about doing our bit for the environment.

I meet a lot of people who live in high rise apartments who want to do something for the environment, but struggle to feel either motivated on a day to day basis or feel that any efforts are not rewarding enough and so give up. Through simply growing a few herbs in pots and even a few basic garden salad ingrediants on a verandah, that frustration level is reduced and will of course ensure a greater satisfaction when we eat what we have grown. Read the rest of this entry »

It has to be said, potatoes are probably the consumed vegetable in the world. Even a chip from McDonald’s is still a potato (not saying that they count towards one of the five veg intakes you should per day). The second fact about potatoes is that they are fantastically easy to grow and there is little work involved in growing a bumper crop to feed the family – and it is not even necessary to have acres of soil to do so.

Potatoes are generally planted in spring and early autumn. They are grown from tubers sold in your local nursery or mail order catalogue. I even occasionally buy a bag of potatoes and allow a couple to sprout legs and plant those out in the backyard. Either way seed potatoes should be exposed to light (not direct sunlight – this may cause burning), maybe in some potting mix to help establish 1cm long shoots which may take from 1 to 4 weeks. Large tubers can be cut into pieces provding each piece contains at least one eye or shoot and should be dried for a couple of days before planting. Read the rest of this entry »

Ask anyone if what they think of celery and you will get the same kind of response as when you ask people if they like Vegemite. It provokes strong reactions, its something you love or hate. Celery has the same effect. I personally don’t like it raw or cooked, however, I can not disagree that there is something fresh, crisp and refreshing about it.

Establishing a veggie garden is not always about growing everything that you personally like. If you have kids or a partner that like something you don’t, you should grow it for them, you never know it might get them interested in helping you in the garden! Read the rest of this entry »

I spent many months thinking about starting my own garden. For those of us blessed to have a patch of land no matter the size go into overdrive in the mind of all the things that we would like to do with this commodity. Where are the kids going to play, what about colour, where do I grow the vegetables, what water source will I use? The questions are endless. The biggest question is what to do with the lawn. Lawns are nice to look at but what purpose do they really serve? Your kids might play on it, you may have a picnic or family bbq in the back yard and it gives you somewhere to sit, but its uses are few. The biggest inconvenience is mowing it, especially week after week in summer!

Unfortunately I am no garden designer, I have enough dreams for my own, but one of the easiest decisions should be that it is imperative that we establish our own food growing family business. That’s right, growing produce should be central to any family home if we are to sustain the planet, fill our mouths will good food and minimize our spending at the supermarket. Please don’t get me wrong I am all for supporting Australian farmers, my concern is that Australian agriculture needs to move away from traditional European styles of farming to methods that suit the Australian climate. Read the rest of this entry »

As I get ready for the onslaught of winter it is the perfect time to prepare my beds for some much needed revitilisation. After a great harvest over the summer months it is time to feed my soil while growing those good old winter staples, cauli’s, brocoli, carrots, silverbeet and potatoes.

Working in the city all week and getting home after dark it is difficult to always find time to do those all important jobs during the winter months, especially if its raining all weekend., or you have two young kids and you have to wait til they are having an afternoon sleep before you get five minutes to yourself! Read the rest of this entry »

My patches are looking a little bare right now after all the harvesting these part couple of weeks. Thankfully my Mother-in-Law has given me a bag of seed potatoes and I have been growing a few seeds of my own. Read the rest of this entry »

Interview http://www.shesaid.com.au/article.aspx?n=10240667

Interview http://www.sunnydaysmagazine.com.au/Stories/Stories/Greener-Pastures.php

Last May is when I started building and planting out my two veggie patches with spring and summer produce. I can’t describe the feeling of excitement of watching these seedlings grow week by week, the anticipation of how big the potatoes and carrots were getting under the soil, and whether I should just leave it one more week so they might be just that little bit bigger! OK, I’ve gone a little crazy since growing my own, but there is no feeling like that of new life after hours of hard graft in soil preparation, of feeding and watering, staking and bug spraying (with white oil of course!), and then the time comes to plunge the fork into the ground, lift up the soil and see your harvest sitting their in all its full glory. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the core passions behind setting up my business is to find ways to educate children in not only healthy eating but also education of the food cycle. I am currently training some adults of varying ages in my corporate workplace and not one of them new whether it took a rooster for a chicken to produce eggs. We really have fallen a long way in our understanding of food and the processes involved of where it comes from and how it is produced, packaged and transported to our dining room table. Read the rest of this entry »

The Australian summer is upon us. While I am from the Northern Hemisphere and the 1^st of December is approached with dread (first day of winter), the 1^st of December here in Sydney came crashing through at 32 degrees and a humidity that three years on I still struggle to cope with. It’s not the heat the so much as the stillness of the air, especially down in the city where the noise and the business seem to increase that humidity, even if only in my mind.

As wonderful as the Australian summer is, and I love it, the one thing that always amazes me is how the trees and plants here cope and survive and new growth is born as bush fires, increased through hot winds, sweep through vast parts of the landscape, destroying whatever is in its path. Read the rest of this entry »