You Can Grow Some Food, Even in Small Spaces.

After I mentioned that I get produce from my garden, I received a comment from someone saying that they couldn’t possibly do what I do as they don’t have enough space to grow a garden. Growing a garden, providing some food for yourself and your family need not take a lot of room. Here, let me show you.

Here I used an old fridge to grow leeks, before the leeks were in I had in lettuce and spring onion.  This is a wicking bed where there is a water reservoir below the holes in the sides. This saves me from having to water all over summer as we are away at the shack for a month.

This is my brassica bed and its also a wicking bed made in a big plastic tank about 160cm across. The netting to to prevent the cabbage moths getting into it.  I am on my second planting for the year. The previous cabbages have finished and now I have more, as well as broccoli and cauliflower.

Another wicking bed in an old fridge, this had lettuce, parsnips and chard and now it had cauliflowers and chard. 

These tanks are 160cm across and this one grew potatoes, capsicum, beetroot, chives and lettuce, now it has garlic, green beans, capsicum and chives.

This tank held potatoes, butter beans, beetroot, parsnips, carrots, now the beans and potatoes have finished I have planted more beetroot and carrots.

Strawberries have grown here on the deck in these pots.

Another way to grow strawberries in a small space is to grow them in guttering in a wall. (picture from sallygardens.typepad.com)

My grapes grow up a trellis

My corn was planted in a space, a triangle 2x2x2 metres and I got enough frozen for a year.  At the far end of the triangle, I have a mandarin and a lemon tree.

Even though, here we have plenty of room for an orchard and grow nectarine, peach, apricot, green gages, apples, plums, I realise not everyone has the space. But now you can get dwarf fruit trees which we have planted on our small block at the shack.

Under the walnut tree, I have the home for my 3 egg layers. The white cage is an extension yard for them.

Pumpkins ramble among the flower garden.

Here is an example of a meal from our garden. Everything on the plate, minus the lamb chop was grown here.  And if you can't grow your own, you can always forage. Even though these blackberries are not ripe in the picture when they are, its worth hopping the fence and picking for jam making and pies

Deb