Supermarkets have taken over our lives. The branded goods that control our weekly shopping trolley groan under the sheer weight of false allegiance. Loyalty counts for very little these days. I know that when I do the shopping I speed around the ailses putting the same goods in my trolley that I did last week. However, the sections I struggle with the most is the meat section and the produce section.

The produce section always looks so fresh, so beautifully presented, its screaming eat me!! This experience is short-lived. The moment you raise hand to mouth and chew, first impressions are shattered and the tastebuds tell you the truth about what u have purchased.

In my mind the battle lines have been drawn. Many of us buy fruit and vegetables on a regular basis, mainly out of guilt and pressure. We have to ensure the kids are getting fruit and vegetables into their diet. I have a 6 month old just started on solids. His favorite food is sweet potato followed by pear, these were also my 3 year olds favorites too, trying to get a vegetable or piece of fruit into him now is a nightmare. I wish I understood why kids suddenly switch off a button one day and say, no more fruit and veggies.

There are so many nutritional values to fresh produce. How much from our local supermarket produce I don’t know. Either much of it has been sprayed with ‘we don’t know what’, or we peel and wash it so much that we wash out most of its nutriuent content.

On the positive, let’s look at what produce can contain.

Antioxidants – everything claims to contain antioxidants from tea bags to shampoo. I’m tired of seeing this advertising word on many of the items I buy. Antioxidants help guard against cancer and slow the process of ageing. (Now I know why so many foods proclaim to contain antioxidants). Fruit and veggies contain thousands of antioxidants that gives it their unique colours, aromas and flavours. The two sources of highest levels of antioxidants are blueberries and wine grapes. Tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, kale, strawberries and watercress all contain this vital nutrient. The theory goes that that the darker the skin of the fruit or vegetable that more antioxidants that it contains.

Garlic is a great vegetable that helps boost the immune system and helps prevent cardiovascular disease. It is far better to eat this healthy diet than eat rubbish and think that because we take a couple of multi-vitamins a day we will preserve our health and our bodies.

Given that food is so important to our wellbeing, that you might expect it to have the appropriate price tag. But we are conditioned to think that food should be as a cheap as possible. This race to the bottom by supermarket competition has done the most damage to our attitudes about food. I also notice that the majority of specials that the supermarket has on in any given week are in the cake, biscuit and soft drink isles.

For these and many other reasons this is why I am such a strong advocate for grow your own. You will know exactly where they have been grown, what they have been sprayed with (hopefully nothing) and you will pick them when they are ripe, unlike the supermarkets. If you can’t grow your own, search out a local farmers market, or use roadside stalls. I love going for a drive any buying my weeks fruit and veggies from a stall on the side of the road.

If you choose the right fruit and vegetable varieties, it is possible to grow a good deal of the family’s food in a suburban backyard, even on a balcony. Box and hanging basket grow just as well as a raised garden bed. Growing your own is all about taking back control of our own health and helping to minimise our damage to the environment. Through growing your own and sharing some with a neighbour, you may unknowningly plant a seed in their mind to try growing their own.

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.

We can spend hours, weeks and even years discussing sustainable farming, in fact the whole world has for many years. The biggest lesson we are learning is that change comes in incremental steps. Starting small is exactly the right approach when starting your own garden. I have learnt and continually learning as every season and year passes by. The more I try and fail at growing different produce and plants it gives me the determination to try the same produce the following year. The method I am in favour of when starting out veggie growing is to start small, try a 1 metre x 1 metre raised bed. Maybe start this season growing in pots, simple herbs on a window sill. Once you realize that you do not kill everything then move up to something slightly bigger, then grow season after season until you have enough produce growing to feed your household and possibly pass some onto the neighbours.

My second tip is to ask questions. We all know someone who is an experienced gardener. No matter how determined we are to succeed in growing our own produce and plants, a little (or a lot in this case) help will help you understand your garden, its soil, the weather patterns and how they affect what you are growing. The most important thing to understand is the seasons, something we have really lost touch with due to the fact we can buy all of our favorite produce all year round in our supermarkets.

h4>Work with what you have

When I first starting gardening, the soil was in terrible condition. Heavy, boggy, totally lacking in any nutrients and organic matter, it took me weeks to bring the soil to life. If this is a good description of your backyard, you may consider creating a raised bed, no dig garden.

To get started in creating a garden, water the ground where you are going to work the day before. This will make digging easier.

• Remove any weeds, a tedious and boring job, but one that is essential if we are going to grow healthy produce or plants. There is nothing worse than growing something that is weak because all the weeds and grass around it are sucking the nutrients out of the soil.
• Feed the soil with organic matter and compost. Buy a bag of blood and bone mix, chook manure pellets and some seaweed solution and dig them into the soil.
• Cover the area with mulch to keep the soil moist.
• Repeat this process in a couple of weeks and continue the process until the soil is easy to dig, a rich brown colour, and holds together. While this is a lot of work it is imperative that you prepare the ground for any chance of success.
• Planting anything takes imagination. Read up on where things grow best and in what conditions, then plan your space. You may end up having one veggie patch in a full sun position, while you have another patch in the other corner that is shaded most of the day. Garden beds and structures do not have to be square; they can be whatever shape you like that compliments your garden and home. When planting think about how big each plant or seedling will grow and plant accordingly. I’m all for growing as much as you can within your designated space, but don’t forget about airflow and shadowing other plants that need sunlight. On the other hand planting out too far apart will expose plants to buffeting winds and wastes valuable space. When planning my patches I looked through books and photographs to get an idea of what to grow where and how – use the experts!
• Increasingly, vegetables and fruit are seen in an ornamental light. Using small empty pockets within flowerbeds in between flowers can really add character and a sense of fun and relaxation to your garden. On a serious side, growing plants, herbs and produce together can help combat pests.
• Be careful of planting trees near established beds. Trees have large root systems that will spread right under the earth in search of water possibly taking away valuable resources and nutrients away from the beds causing your plants to struggle. Talking of valuable resources and nutrients, the soil in which everything grows is the life source of what’s growing. Getting the soil mix right in terms of organic matter, compost and living things such as earth worms is the most important lesson for every gardener to understand. Different plants need slightly different soil conditions, some acidic, some alkaline. Through my blogs and seed packet instructions and by purchasing a pH tester kit, this will set you up for success with your planting.

No Dig Gardens

I am a huge fan of no-dig gardening. They are a lot less work to establish and you can make the structure as low or as high as you like so as to avoid bending down. While my patches are only about 50mm deep, the ‘garden’ is contained and much easier to manage and keep weeds infringing on the bed. I use sleepers as my structural material as they are long lasting and easy to work with.

• Ingredients used to prepare the beds are simple:
• Layers of newspaper
• Dried grass clippings
• Soft green prunings
• Chicken or sheep manure – pellet form is good
• Bags or home delivered mushroom compost to fill the patch.
• A few bags of compost/potting mix
• Liquid seaweed
• Mulch

With these basic ingredients, layered within the structure you have yourself a good basis to a healthy veggie patch. This is of course what I sell, and how I do it.

One final tip. If you do decide to buy seedlings before delving into trying to grow seedlings from seed (which I recommend), then make sure you go to a nursery where the seedlings are already outside. Too many places sell the seedlings inside the store and then once introduced to the elements die because of shock. You may have to drive a few extra miles to find an outdoor nursery, but I can tell you it is worth it.

Gardening and success is all about trial and error- go and make some mistakes but thoroughly enjoy your success!

Why don’t you tell me how you went/go with establishing your garden……

Cucumbers, capsicums, sweet corn and carrots have been propogating this past week and are ready to plant out this weekend. It has been above 40 degrees here, so I have been using some damp newspaper and shade cloth to help protect the little seedlings from the sun strong rays – worked a treat!

Also used over the veggie patches covering the newly planted lettaces and pak choy last weekend.

Growing my own veggies only started about three years ago. Fresh off the plane from the UK, I was amazed by the amount of available space. England is crammed with over 60 million people, where growing veggies is done on a rented allotment rather than in the back garden due to its small dimensions.

My wife and I bought a house with a fairly small backyard and I built a makeshift veggie patch. I had grand designs of becoming self-sufficient and growing enough food for the neighbourhood etc etc. Off I went to the nursery, bought packets of seeds, went home threw them in the ground, watered them and waited… and waited… and waited. Nothing happened. I was devastated; I couldn’t even grow a seedling. What a failure I was!

Thankfully I am married to a wonderful woman who is always encouraging, always full of good ideas and knows what it takes to get me going again. As a result I bought and tried established seedlings. I had much greater success with these and by the end of our first season we had a crop of corn, broccoli and silverbeet. I was satisfied, but not content. I wanted to grow my veggies from seed, not already established seedlings, but every time I tried they never germinated. When I look back, it was because I either drowned them, buried them too deep or used the wrong potting mix (99 per cent of success is due to soil quality).

I persisted and managed to grow corn, beans and beetroot from seed. Larger seeds are easier to grow because they are stronger and hardier than varieties with tiny little seeds, like carrots and onions, which can easily be drowned or buried too deep. (Following the instructions on the packet really helps!)

Last December we moved onto a 600 square metre block. It backs onto a beautiful reserve and the garden has the richest, most vibrant soil. There are fruit trees and two veggie patches, as well as potato patches and six laying chickens.

Everything was going so well. The ideas for my business were coming together, I was having increasing success at growing seeds and my own patches were taking off. I decided to invest in a greenhouse. After picking it up I impatiently erected it with Joh’s help. Ties and stakes came with the greenhouse to secure it. We decided we didn’t need them and anyway they were a potential safety hazard for our two-year-old son to trip over (or pull off). The greenhouse was quickly filled with beautiful healthy seedlings. I would come home every night and water the plants (in the dark), waiting impatiently for the weekend so I could really see their progress.

One Friday night a storm came. It was so big that I slept through it! However, my greenhouse didn’t. It was torn up, ripped to shreds and the frame broken into unfixable pieces. This was my first major financial loss and a huge kick to my confidence. I managed to salvage most of the seedlings, which I quickly planted in my own beds. They are now healthy plants and will soon be ready for harvesting.

When you start growing your own produce expect a few failings, but as you will learn nothing beats the rush of harvesting your own produce and all the hard is appreciated so much more upon the eating!

So what has happened?

In simplest terms, we have lost our connection with nature. No, not the strange connection of hugging trees or waving placards, but the connection of knowing and understanding the simple things like how our food is grown and where it comes from. We no longer understand the seasons as we buy our English strawberries in the middle of an Australian winter. We no longer value the resource of water as there are over a dozen brands to choose from in the supermarket. At the other extreme we buy tons of produce a year, most of it thrown either into the bin, or shoved to the back of the fridge where it rots and also ends up in the bin.

Much of the fruit and vegetables that we buy on a weekly basis are not in season for most of the year yet because of our demand, they are grown, picked and packaged in another countr and shipped over after they have been frozen for up to nine months. This produce is picked before the produce has been allowed to ripen and so has no flavour upon eating.

So what can we do?

Small ideas enrich lifestyles. Growing our own produce not only improves our physical bodies (especially those that are grown without pesticides), but also helps improve the environment. As we start to understand where our food comes from, what process has to take place for the transportation needs for the food to get to our supermarkets, the more we will start to shop for local ingrediants where possible. By simply digging over a patch of dirt in the back yard, throwing in a few seeds, watering them a couple of times a week, I can almost guarantee you will become obsessed with how these little things that are so good for you will enrich not just your meal times but also your lifestyle. So whether you live in a one bedroom apartment with a balcony, or on an acerage, I dare you to try growing your own and watch how these words ring true!!