GROWING YOUR OWN VEGETABLES

There’s lots of reasons in this new, pandemic world, why being somewhat self sufficient is a good idea. Knowing you have food such as fruit and vegetables in your backyard creates self satisfaction, gives you something to concentrate on when you’re in lockdown and gives you more control of where your food comes from. It’s also better for you because it’s fresher and if you choose to go down the organic path, there’s less chemicals on what you eat. You might be thinking that it’s all well and good if you’re a horticulturist or a farmer but how easy is it for the average person?  It’s sooooo easy! You’ll surprise yourself!

First of all, think about what vegetables you like to eat. For our family, we eat pretty much anything. So for us, the staple vegetables in our garden are always Lettuce and Spinach.  They are literally the easiest things to grow and you can eat them in a couple of weeks so you feel like you’ve achieved something really great very quickly.

So let’s just start with what you’ll need to grow these two vegetables.

• 2 x big containers – ideally large pots for plants with a base at the bottom.  You could also use planter boxes (if you have the space) that you can buy from a lot of stores including Hardware stores like Mitre 10, Home Hardware or Bunnings.
• 2 x large bags of potting mix such as Eco Potting Mix 60L bag (approx. $10) or Garden Soil 50L (approx. $8) (We like to use Rocky Point Mulching products at Price Produce Rosewood but there are others available)
• Spinach and Lettuce vegetable seedlings from a Plant Nursery or from your preferred store. Make sure you get a very healthy looking plant that doesn’t look too big for the container it is in and also that it doesn’t have roots growing out of the holes at the bottom.
• Water the vegetable seedlings every couple of days so that the soil feels moist but you don’t want them to be saturated all of the time as the plants can rot. You can also put mulch around the top of the plants (Rocky Point Sugarcane Mulch available at Price Produce Rosewood).  This will help the potting mix/garden soil to retain water by stopping evaporation.

And THAT is pretty much it! Just pick the leaves as you want to eat them leaving the rest of the plant for your next meals.

The great thing about vegetables too is that even if you neglect them terribly, you can get a second chance at starting again.  They often go to seed which means when it rains, the seeds grow by themselves and you’ll have lots of seedlings start.  This is pretty much how we grow lettuce.  Buy a punnet of about 6 and let one go to seed.  Lettuces will appear for a long time to come.

If you would like any further information regarding this blog, feel free to contact us at priceproduce@bigpond.com or call the store on 07 5464 1166. Checkout our website www.priceproduce.com.au for the products mentioned.

Happy food growing!