For most folk, a vegetable garden might need to be supplemented with store purchased veg.
Having said that, there's no hard and fast rule because the variations in available cropping area, climate an knowledge, will determine outcomes.
Vegetable gardening also, is not cheap to start up and maintain unless you know how to make fertilizers, have good soil and cheap water.
People often like the thought of growing food but for the average person it's not cost effective.
The few tips / suggestions
.
*Consider not growing potatoes, carrots and onions because they are very cheap from the shops if you live in the city. Potatoes, like lots of water and they don't like salty soils. Onions are ok to grow if you use them as spring onions but if you try to grow them to maturity, they often go rotten or get attacked by mildew. (Long term storage can be a problem)
*Grow food you and your partner will eat, perhaps just grow vegies that you would ordinarily buy each week from the green grocer.
*Grow food that suits, not only your location, but also your enthusiasm and available time; if you are a lazy gardener, grow food that takes care of it self. If you have never grown food before but you're really enthusiastic, your enthusiasm may end-up like the oil price so try to be honest with yourself.
*On average, most vegetables take about 8 - 12 weeks to grow, knowing the timings might help you to only plant seeds or seedlings that will grow well during that season; often folk make the mistake of planting vegies like cucumber (example Sydney region) now whilst it's still reasonably warm but they are growing warm season plants that will be affected by cool nights, mildew, attacks from aphids and poor growth, sure some have the expertise to grow some warm season crops into the start of winter but generally it could be challenging. Same goes for tomatoes (the big ones) but some of the cherry toms that seem to pop-up are very tough and will grow in a warm-microclimate even through winter.
To produce fungicide and pesticide free vegies it might be expensive and sometimes frustrating; don't forget that if you love Broc, cabbage etc, you may have to protect them from caterpillars; white netting that keeps cabbage moth out but still allows enough sunlight is the ticket; applying an organic dust to seedlings before netting (Derris-dust and net straight away) and applying organic snail bait such as "multicrop" organic snail bait is the ticket.
Although the vegie patch can be an expensive part of the garden, what price do you place on food when what you want is not available? Perhaps the cost out-weighs the negatives and if you are a good judge of vegie prices increasing in your loc, it maybe worth while.
You'll never have enough room in the vegie garden if you want continuity of food production, so try to stagger your crops; your partner is going to be pissed-off if you grow ten cabbages and they all become mature on the same date and she'll toss you (that was a pun
) and your lettuce in the bin if you grow 20 lettuces. When you get that punnet of seedlings, space them closer than normal then remove the weakest so the veg has ample room, being ruthless is difficult especially when they look fabulous and you become proud of your seedlings, be tough, chop them out.
Just a few more points on survival crops.
I'm not keen on white sweet potato but I grow a huge qty because they are a nutritious food, they look after them self, the shoots (green tips) can be eaten raw; where I live, they are a bomb proof perennial crop, so I grow them only as an emergency back-up crop. You too, might be able to find a food that grows like a weed at your place, so, if they do why not do the same, who knows what's going to happen in the future.
Some of the vegies / hebs I've found to grow without much effort (self germinating and self growing) in an area like Sydney are:
*Sweet potatoes
*Chicory (All of the radicchio family)
*Cos Lettuce
*Celery
*Cherry tomatoes
*Flat leaf parsley (Some folk call it Italian, Greek or Maltese parsley)
*Leaf Mustard lettuce
*Bok choy
*New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonoides)
Having said that, there's no hard and fast rule because the variations in available cropping area, climate an knowledge, will determine outcomes.
Vegetable gardening also, is not cheap to start up and maintain unless you know how to make fertilizers, have good soil and cheap water.
People often like the thought of growing food but for the average person it's not cost effective.
The few tips / suggestions
.*Consider not growing potatoes, carrots and onions because they are very cheap from the shops if you live in the city. Potatoes, like lots of water and they don't like salty soils. Onions are ok to grow if you use them as spring onions but if you try to grow them to maturity, they often go rotten or get attacked by mildew. (Long term storage can be a problem)
*Grow food you and your partner will eat, perhaps just grow vegies that you would ordinarily buy each week from the green grocer.
*Grow food that suits, not only your location, but also your enthusiasm and available time; if you are a lazy gardener, grow food that takes care of it self. If you have never grown food before but you're really enthusiastic, your enthusiasm may end-up like the oil price so try to be honest with yourself.
*On average, most vegetables take about 8 - 12 weeks to grow, knowing the timings might help you to only plant seeds or seedlings that will grow well during that season; often folk make the mistake of planting vegies like cucumber (example Sydney region) now whilst it's still reasonably warm but they are growing warm season plants that will be affected by cool nights, mildew, attacks from aphids and poor growth, sure some have the expertise to grow some warm season crops into the start of winter but generally it could be challenging. Same goes for tomatoes (the big ones) but some of the cherry toms that seem to pop-up are very tough and will grow in a warm-microclimate even through winter.
To produce fungicide and pesticide free vegies it might be expensive and sometimes frustrating; don't forget that if you love Broc, cabbage etc, you may have to protect them from caterpillars; white netting that keeps cabbage moth out but still allows enough sunlight is the ticket; applying an organic dust to seedlings before netting (Derris-dust and net straight away) and applying organic snail bait such as "multicrop" organic snail bait is the ticket.
Although the vegie patch can be an expensive part of the garden, what price do you place on food when what you want is not available? Perhaps the cost out-weighs the negatives and if you are a good judge of vegie prices increasing in your loc, it maybe worth while.
You'll never have enough room in the vegie garden if you want continuity of food production, so try to stagger your crops; your partner is going to be pissed-off if you grow ten cabbages and they all become mature on the same date and she'll toss you (that was a pun
) and your lettuce in the bin if you grow 20 lettuces. When you get that punnet of seedlings, space them closer than normal then remove the weakest so the veg has ample room, being ruthless is difficult especially when they look fabulous and you become proud of your seedlings, be tough, chop them out. Just a few more points on survival crops.
I'm not keen on white sweet potato but I grow a huge qty because they are a nutritious food, they look after them self, the shoots (green tips) can be eaten raw; where I live, they are a bomb proof perennial crop, so I grow them only as an emergency back-up crop. You too, might be able to find a food that grows like a weed at your place, so, if they do why not do the same, who knows what's going to happen in the future.
Some of the vegies / hebs I've found to grow without much effort (self germinating and self growing) in an area like Sydney are:
*Sweet potatoes
*Chicory (All of the radicchio family)
*Cos Lettuce
*Celery
*Cherry tomatoes
*Flat leaf parsley (Some folk call it Italian, Greek or Maltese parsley)
*Leaf Mustard lettuce
*Bok choy
*New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonoides)
