Better Homes and Gardens (Australia)
all you can eat from your own backyard!
o fresh, so convenient and so satisfying. That’s the nature of homegrown food. This gardener so enjoyed the planting and growing process, plus the pride of serving food she’d grown herself, she kept taking more space in her backyard. Today, the garden produces a range of fruit and veg, there are a few chooks for fresh eggs, and even a colony of native bees who help to pollinate the crops.
1 Appearance matters
in a family backyard, so it’s laid out with lots of space, and all the materials used are attractive and long lasting.
This self-sufficient suburban patch produces a delicious supply of fresh fruit, vegies and eggs
2 Decorative metal screens
are used as a design element and to divide garden beds. They can also be used to support climbing plants and are handy for hanging baskets.
3 You can make raised beds
by using recycled fruit harvest boxes, knock up your own using hardwood palings or buy kits. Stand the boxes on bricks to ventilate the undersides.
4 Are possums eating all of your fruit?
Netting trees is the simplest way to keep your crop safe from hungry birds and other animals. Just make sure that you use wildlife-friendly netting.
5 Made from recycled
or reclaimed materials, this shed has three rooms one for storage, one for tools and one for propagation. The cladding of recycled wharf decking gives it a wonderfully aged look.
6 As fruit trees grow
they cast more and more shade, which can make growing vegies harder as they need lots of sun. But there are dwarf trees that grow to a fraction of the bulk of their standard cousins. Dwarf varieties produce full-size fruit, are good croppers and can also be grown in big pots.
7 Want a worm farm?
Use an old bathtub! Raise it up so you can place a bucket under the drain hole to collect the liquid gold that drips out. Well watered down, it makes a wonderful free fertiliser. Always keep the worm farm covered with hessian or old carpet and place it in a warm spot, but out of the blazing hot sun.
8 Growing edibles doesn’t mean sacrificing aesthetics.
Here’s a combination of foliage colours, shapes, sizes and textures. From front are red-leaved sorrel, curly parsley, velvety-leaved clary sage and the common culinary herb, sage. All are edible or medicinal.
9 Three chickens are enough
for a fresh egg a day, but they do need a roomy, fox-proof coop even in the suburbs of major cities and most councils have regulations so best check first.