Vegging out:

Fancy a backyard vegetable patch? all you need is some sunshine, kitchen scraps, and a little bit of patience.

Get your mitts dirty with a backyard veggie patch

There are plenty of reasons to start growing your own vegetables at home: you’ll spend less at the shops; be swamped with happy vibes as you nurture your own little patch of land; and have healthy snacks growing right outside your door. If you’d quite like to bring some carrots, sweet corn or peas into your life, below are a few tips for making it happen. 1. Step one in the journey to a healthy crop is deciding where your new vegetable progeny will live. Pop them in the wrong spot, and you’ve signed their death warrant before they’ve even had a chance to push out their first leaf. The main factor to consider is light: will they be exposed to at least six hours of sun each day? If so, turn your attention to things like space (you’ll need adequate room for your plants to grow, but not so much that watering and weeding becomes tricky); exposure to the elements (strong winds can damage fledgling sprouts); and access to a water source (a sprinkler system or garden hose, for example). ...................

2. No backyard? No worries! You don’t need a whopping big plot of land to grow your own salad-y stuff. There are a few options to choose from based on the size and setup of your home, like an in-ground vegetable patch, raised garden bed, large pot or even polystyrene box. Just keep in mind some plants adapt better to container life than others, so it’s worth doing a bit of reading before you put spade to dirt. Raised beds sit above the ground, and tend to be built with bricks or timber – they heat up fast, which is ace for winter growing, but can leave your veggies feeling parched in the warmer months. ...................

3. Here’s the fun part: choosing which vegetables to plant. Consider what you like to nosh on most – is it broccoli? Cucumber? A spicy chilli? Some plants are more productive through the year than others, so your patience and harvest expectations will also come into play. Most importantly, though, make sure you consult a gardening calendar. These handy charts will tell you which veggies are best suited to your local climate, and when’s the best time to sow your seeds. There’s no point planting frost-hating eggplants in a chilly Tasmanian winter, for instance – work with what you’ve got and you’re far more likely to succeed. ...................

4. Now to get your hands a little bit grubby. Start the planting process by preparing your soil – aim for crumbly, freely draining, easy-to-dig dirt and you’re in good shape. Turn over the soil with a spade to loosen it up and help air get in – this creates room for your seedlings’ roots to grow and spread. Group together plants with similar water and feeding requirements, but don’t let things get too squishy. You can start with seeds or established seedlings (aka baby plants), depending how quickly you want to put a salad together – growing veggies from seed will take an extra four to six weeks. ...................

5. As your plants begin to put down roots and develop into sweet, juicy vegetables, you’ll need to show some love and support to help them on their way. Keep them fed and hydrated with regular drinks of water (if the soil is dry two to three centimetres down, it probably needs a top-up) and vegetable-specific fertiliser. Homemade compost made with kitchen scraps, leaf litter and other organic matter is an ace way to add important nutrients to the soil, and is equally great for the environment. Give weeds the heave-ho, and consider companion planting as a natural form of pest control. (Placing basil near tomatoes will repel aphids, for instance, while rosemary sends carrot flies scarpering.) ...................

6. The general rule when it comes to harvesting your veggies, is if it looks good enough to eat, it probably is. In fact, picking vegetables as soon as they’re ripe will often encourage the plant to produce more goodies. Bigger doesn’t always equal better – most veggies are at their yummiest when they’re relatively small. Pop out daily with pruning shears, and before you know it you’ll have a kitchen full of fresh, homegrown produce.

A friend to novice gardeners the world over, this magentacoloured root vegetable is not just ace on a burger with the lot, but also makes a top-notch addition to your home veggie patch. It’s not too fussy (full sun, part shade, dappled light in a container under a tree – beetroot is happy with whatever you’ve got), and will even let you know when it’s ready for harvest by poking its purple crown above the soil a bit (make sure you keep an eye out for this not-so-subtle hint, because young beets are the sweetest to eat). All beetroot asks for in return is soil filled with nutrient-rich tidbits like compost and manure, and plenty to drink – especially around the time you first sow its seeds. Seems like a good deal, really. Add zucchini to your garden for a botanical double-whammy: fruit and flowers in one delicious hit. The golden, star-shaped blossom that springs from a zucchini vine can be gobbled in its own right, in salads, lightly fried, or used as a garnish. What’s important, though, is pollination of the flower – without bees and butterflies nearby, the blossoms will drop before an adult zucchini has the chance to sprout and grow. Edible blooms like nasturtiums make good planting companions, attracting pollen-carrying insects to your zucchini crop. In the right conditions, zucchinis will multiply fast; be sure to pick them regularly to encourage more growth and prevent them from getting too big, lest they wind up watery and bland. You’ve probably seen capsicums in a rainbow of different colours, but did you know they’re all the very same plant? The vegetable – a member of the nightshade family, which also includes tomatoes, chillis and taters – changes colour as it ripens. That’s why a green capsicum can be a little tart (it’s actually under-ripe!), while the red variety is bursting with sugary yumminess. When you pick your peppers is up to you, but there are a few things to keep in mind for a healthy capsicum crop: place the small, bushy plants in a warm-but-sheltered position; give them regular soakings of H20; and, if you’re short on space, don’t be afraid to make their home in a container or pot. Good news! You don’t need a vast field to grow sweet corn

– a veggie patch or raised garden bed will do the trick. The key is to choose a spot that gets plenty of direct sun, then arrange the plants in a block formation, like little rows of succulent soldiers. Rather than flying insects, sweet corn is pollinated by the wind, so keeping the cobs quite close makes it easier for pollen to spread from plant to plant. The cereal tends to shoot up fast – once it’s got a bit of height, pile some compost, manure and straw around the base of the stem (a process known as ‘hilling’) to boost the corn’s flavour, ward off nasty pests and prevent it from drying out. When you poke a kernel and milky sap oozes out, your sweet corn is ready for harvest.

You may have grown up calling broccoli ‘those little green trees’, but plant-loving boffins would tell you it’s a cruciferous vegetable from the brassica family – aka the distant cousin of other crunchy bits like cauliflower, kale and Brussels sprouts. Hailing from Italy (and supposedly a favourite snack of the Ancient Romans), broccoli’s a cool season veggie, meaning it’s best planted in the slightly chillier months. Nevertheless, it digs a sunny spot away from strong winds so it can grow its big old flowering head in peace. Also worth noting: it’s got a hearty appetite. Plant your broc in rich, well-draining soil with plenty of compost, then give it some more chow about once a week. Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, famously turned his nose up at carrots, but he may have reconsidered if he’d grown his own crop. The crunchy snack – which began as a purple root vegetable in the wilds of Afghanistan

– is sweet and juicy when watered regularly and plucked straight out of the ground. Speaking of the ground, you’ll want to give it some love before sowing your tiny carrot seeds. Dense soil and errant rocks can slow down their growth and cause the adult plant to bend and contort in weird ways. Plenty of sun and deep, loose dirt, on the other hand, is the recipe for a happy carrot, so a raised garden bed makes an ideal backyard home. There are a few reasons tomatoes are popular in backyard veggie gardens: they thrive in both patches and pots; produce more fruit than you’ll know what to do with; and taste a jillion times sweeter when homegrown. On top of that, the Peruvian native (whose Aztec name translates to ‘plump thing with a navel’) comes in thousands of different varieties, each differing slightly in flavour, yield and colour. What these tomatoes all have in common, though, is a preference for sunny climes – in particularly sizzly weather, you can fashion a ‘tomato tent’ from a shadecloth to avoid scorched flesh. There’s also a (relatable) fondness for being horizontal, which can be offset by trailing the vines up a trellis or stake. Strapped for space for your edible crop? Give peas a chance. The crunchy chaps – which include classic green shelling peas, sugar snap peas and snow pea varieties – grow upwards rather than outwards, making them a super-handy option for balconies and compact gardens. No matter the size of your pea crop, though, keep an eye out for winged creatures hovering shiftily nearby. Birds are rather fond of the sweet young seedlings, and if they’re not protected with a net, they’ll fast become a myna’s lunch. The climate peas dig most is cool but not frosty – too much damp can lead to mildew and an untimely pea demise. For that reason, try to avoid wetting their leaves as much as possible, instead focusing water on the plant’s dirty bottom.