Posts Tagged ‘grow your own’

Did you know carrots originated in Afghanistan and were purple in colour? It was the Europeans that bred the standard orange carrot that we so commonly consume. Carrots grow pretty much all year round, need little fertilizer and come in all shapes and sizes, including miniture, ball-shaped and fat stumpy varieties. The best soil to grow carrots in is a well draining sandy loam, not too much added organic matter and with plenty of sun, in a patch where something different has been grown and harvested. (Crop rotation is very important to keep disease away).

Carrot seeds must be sown where they will eventually mature. My advice would be not to bother with buying carrots in punnets as they do not transport into beds too well and often just turn to seed. Prepare the bed a day before sowing by raking and gently loosening the topsoil and give it a good soaking with water. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m laying down the gauntlet! Nothing beats the English strawberry…even my wife agrees that while she lived in England (where we met), she had never tasted such beautiful fruit. I have to say that the fruit you buy in the supermarkets over there is the same quality, or lack of as it is over here. Much of the fruit and veg that is packed onto our supermarket shelves is picked before ripe, packaged in a completely different place (sometimes country) and then stored for up to nine months before distributed out to the retailers. Hardly a sustainable method of growing food and yet breaking that routine of being able to buy and expectation to buy our favorite produce all year round, doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon.

Anyway, back to the gauntlet. I have to admit I tried growing strawberries last year….I failed miserably! I got about 6 strawberries from as many plants and they measured about 2cm long and about 1cm fat….hardly a winner. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

As I talk around I am constantly amazed at the response when I ask people if they would grow their own veggies. The most common responses are, “I don’t have time”, “I’m not practically minded” and I don’t live in a big enough space”. Our addiction for junk food, instant meals and ‘low-fat’ fixes, have blinded us to the reality of how food is grown, produced and finds it’s way to our supermarket shelves. Read the rest of this entry »