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)
I've got three hydroponic tower gardens going - one is dedicated to tomatoes and has been producing about 2kg of cherry tomatoes a week for 10 weeks.
https://www.towergarden.com/ They're crazy expensive new - luckily lots of people buy them, find out that they don't want to put the time into them, and flog them off cheap on Facebook Marketplace - I paid only $100 for one of them. I don't know if they're available in Australia, but basically it's a trickle fed system that uses a pond pump to rise water up a central pipe on a timer, and it drips down throughout the tower getting the roots of the plants that are in 2" net pots. People have replicated the system with homebuilt PVC contraptions. Two are outdoors, in the process of setting up a third indoor one with lights as we enter summer in Florida which is brutal on outdoor vegetables. When they get going they produce like crazy - gave away heaps of veggies in Dec/Jan.
I was in Bunnings 2 weeks ago and their racks were empty. Anything edible (seeds and seedlings) other than herbs had been stripped clean. I took a photo but it won’t upload, I think the file is too large
i wonder how many of those people unknowingly bought hybrid varieties thinking they can keep the seeds from what they grow for the next crop? "hey this isn't the same as what i grew last year???"
Today I stockpiled self raising flour. This shop just got a full pallet of 10kg bags so I got some. Shelf life says use by 2/2021. Should still be good 6 months past that I think.
Creds to all home gardeners but it costs time and money. Like pets you can't take off for a few days at a time and leave them to sort themselves out. Hydro is the go according to an acquaintance. He's keen to know what the current weed/cherrytomato ratio is for trading purposes.
My towers are all timer based - once a week I fill the reservoirs, measure the nutrients with a total dissolved solids meter, add nutrients if required, and then adjust the pH. Adjusting pH involves a few hours of waiting for things to stabilize. The other days we're just picking salads.
As it's that time of the year to start planting winter veg, decided to plant extra (both seedlings and seeds for staggered cropping) and more varied veg and will continue to plant out approx every two weeks for the foreseeable future. Can always trade surplus with my neighbors for eggs or another for some good Indian food (which freezes okay). Bunnings up my way appears to be fully restocked with both seedlings and seeds post the initial panic buying. Did not see a shortage or fert or manure at Bunnings which is kind of important when growing backyard veg. Guess they didn't think about that too well when buying all the tomato seedlings Bunnings had...LOL.
I went into Campbell’s wholesaler today and some things don’t make any sense. Literally the whole cleaning section wiped out including hardware. Most chemicals gone excluding bleach which is the cheapest and most effective chemical to kill covid and any virus
We built a big garden last summer and we are getting excited to plant. My wife has tomato plants and watermelons started already and spring is coming fast. I heard in Vermont they made buying books and seeds illegal now, as well as anything nonessential. Sounds like they are trying to start a fight they cant win.