Grow Your Own

AUTHOR: Angus Stewart and Simon Leake

PUBLISHER: Murdoch Books RRP: $45

REVIEWER: Mary Ann Elliott

WELL-KNOWN gardening personalities Angus Stewart and Simon Leake have combined their expertise and long experience in this definitive “how-to” guide on urban farming.

If you’re a city dweller or have limited space in which to grow your own vegetables, they will guide you every inch of the way.

Many of us are keen to grow our own produce, giving us the satisfaction of eating home-grown food; at the same time teaching children where food comes from.

It’s also rewarding to swap produce with each other; instead of flowers, my visitors usually go home with a bunch of spinach as well as the ubiquitous tomatoes, parsley, mint and basil.

Even if you have only a tiny space on a balcony, Angus estimates that one square metre could produce 36 heads of lettuce every 60 days, 100 onions every 120 days or about 200 tomatoes a year.

Using kitchen scraps to feed your soil, retain seeds and propagate cuttings is an added advantage to the many significant benefits to whole neighbourhoods; helping protect the environment, reducing waste, curtailing fossil fuels and other sustainable outcomes.

How to construct beds and plots, choosing the right crops for your space, propagating, fertilising, composting and mulching, are all valuable techniques that make for an economically viable environment.

Here’s the go-to book that answers all of your questions about small-space urban farming.