How to get started now . . .

Remembering our childhood gardens is what inspired us to recapture and recreate a little of the past.

We had limited room to put vegies in our backyard (too many trees, not enough sun) but managed some very productive pots of herbs, tomatoes and peas but it wasn’t enough!!!

So we got radical and removed the front lawn entirely, expanding the existing garden areas and filling the front yard with tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, herbs, beans etc. It is not a conventional vegie patch, it is a rambling one with cucumbers spreading amongst salvias and catmint, rattlesnake beans climbing through port wine magnolias and lettuce/celery/fennel/tomatoes/capsicum & rocket self seeding, coming up in the most unexpected places.

We planted a lot of heirloom varieties from the Diggers Club and rediscovered the joy and satisfaction of growing vegies from seed and we now allow some of every crop to go to seed, collect them and save for the next season.

It’s a more satisfying kind of gardening - we still have flowers, beauty and perfume, and now also food! This past summer we picked enough from the garden for salads for every day, the overflow went to our great neighbours who baby-sit the garden and the chooks when we go away.