Organic garden: Food for thought

Fifty or 60 years ago everybody had a backyard vegetable garden. There were chooks, fruit was grown and apples were stewed. Everybody had access to home grown. That is the bliss of gardening yourself. There’s always something you can find.

Large sleeper beds were exchanged for more manageable small ones, planted with a broad variety of vegetables and herbs. Perennial asparagus flourishes in the long narrow sleeper bed on the left.

The vegie garden thrives on companion planting and ideas from Mel Bartholomew’s classic book Square Foot Gardening while chooks supply fresh eggs nearly all year round. 

The paths that meander through the garden and provide access to the beds in the vegetable patch are sawdust, which is wonderfully soft underfoot. It’s topped up twice a year.

Nothing beats the taste of freshly plucked apples.

Easy to grow, red cabbage can be grown in seed trays, and can be planted out in four to six weeks.

Marigold flowers make a gorgeous salad garnish.

Spring is the best time to plant parsley, although it can continue during summer and autumn.