Yahoo Lifestyle How To Grow Vegetables
You want a pretty garden but also want to grow some of your own organic produce: then take your lead from Karen Sutherland.
Her suburban garden looks delightful, but instead of growing everyday shrubs and trees – and then having a separate vegie patch – she’s created her landscape with more than 150 different edible plants. The trees are fruit or nut trees, the shrubs yield fruit or edible leaves, the flowers are herbs or vegies.
She and partner John love to gather food from their garden. They share any leftovers with family and friends and there’s still plenty to preserve for later or to take to their local food swaps.
Her pergola drips with grapes, her hedges carry fruit and even the potted plants can be eaten. Karen is a garden designer committed to a sustainable lifestyle. She’s proved it works, and now uses her stunning garden as a demonstration site for the workshops she runs.
Fruits in the shade
Don’t be put off if your garden’s not all sunny. Most edible plants will still crop if you can’t avoid planting them in shade. “Clients who visit my garden always want a hedge of strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum) after they see how good it looks,” Karen explains. “It’s adaptable, growing in sun or semi-shade and other favourites that put up with part-shade are kiwifruit and blueberries.” Have a go – and be prepared to try different plants in varying degrees of shade. You’ll be surprised by what grows in what spot.
Karen's 3 top tips:
1. Go for perennials “I moved away from seasonal vegies such as beans and lettuce towards permanent perennials and shrubs,” says Karen. “There’s less work in that they don’t need to be replanted.”
2. Choose the easiest “Some crops practically grow themselves,” says Karen. “I don’t do without rhubarb, sorrel, perennial bell pepper, perennial leeks, yacón [a root vegetable], taro, Jerusalem artichokes and choko. All these vegetables have to tolerate some shade at my place.”
3. Plant thickly “Don’t have bare soil. Weeds will soon move in,” she says. “I tend to plant most things about 30cm apart and then just cut them back when they begin to crowd their neighbours. You get more crop, too.”
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Produce needs good soil and in most gardens soil improvement is necessary. Start breaking up heavy, clay-based soil by working gypsum, a natural clay- breaker, through it. From then on, continuously improve your soil and build it up with compost generated by worm farms or compost heaps fed with organic matter such as fallen leaves and grass clippings. Mulch the whole garden with lucerne hay and give an occasional dressing of gypsum and blood and bone.
No-waste watering
Except for the vegetables and herbs, this garden is watered by a grey water system, re-using water from the laundry and bathroom. Low-salt liquid detergents and soaps are used to help avoid soil problems. Meanwhile, three 1200-litre rainwater tanks are used to water the vegetable patch and herb pots.
How to do it
Don’t rush – plant the garden in stages It’s easy to overdo trees. They gobble up space and cast shade, and though they can be pruned back, that is extra work you may not want. Start with two to three in a group and see what happens. You can always plant more later.
Grow what you use.
You could probably eventually grow most of what you currently buy, but Karen suggests you stick to the easier crops such as: perpetual spinach, flat-leaf parsley, spring onions, and celery, as these are common ingredients.
What you can do with extra produce:
- Use a home dehydrater to dry fruit and any suitable vegies.
- Make chutneys, jams, pickles.
- Give to friends, relatives, neighbours. Nothing improves the sense of community spirit like a lovely gift of fresh fruit and veg. Join a food-swap scheme. Go to communitygarden.org.au and go to the food swap blog.
To put on the roof
Sun-lovers like potatoes on her garage roof in pots. The structure of the roof was strengthened to carry the weight of the pots and to handle people walking on it.
