Edible Gardens

There’s something really special about eating food you’ve grown from seeds in your own soil. A vegetable patch is something that used to be ubiquitous in Australian backyards. In some cases this has left people with a general horror of choko and floury potatoes, but we no longer have to limit ourselves to those traditional, European vegetables. There are many diverse fruits and vegetables that will flourish in our climate to match our ever expanding palettes.

If you think food plants are unattractive, you’ve never seen a living fence of cassava or used a loofah vine to cover a pool fence. Potato and sweet potato are not only attractive, they improve your soil and cover bare earth. Beans and grapes are stunning on a trellis or arbour and avocado trees are tall, beautiful and productive – to name merely a few.

You can choose how much time and energy you invest by carefully choosing which species to plant and what type of garden to create. Many vegetables, often the lesser-known species, are perennial rather than annual, meaning they last for years and don’t require resowing. A no dig vegetable garden is good for the land as well as your time and muscles and can be modified for wheelchair users or the elderly.

Food plants can also provide other services to your landscape: bananas and arrowroot can soak up excess or grey water, beans and other legumes add nitrogen to the soil and native foods attract butterflies, birds and other wildlife. Herbs are both vital for your sensory enjoyment as well as being excellent natural pest controllers. Sustainable can help you choose the best combination of species, the most effective layout for productivity and combining food growing with water conservation and recycling strategies.

As soon as you start producing food in your garden, you immediately become more closely connected to the earth, the seasons and the weather. Kids love it, your health loves it and you can back away a little from being purely a consumer and move towards being sustainable.