Why?
So why would you grow your own veggies and go through that much work?
For me personally there were several reasons, I always loved growing things, to ease the financial pressure of living in Sydney, and it’s a relatively cheapish hobby which is quite rewarding in the end.
How?
While currently renting a home with a small courtyard the only option was to grow out of containers. To know what sort of containers you would need you will first have to figure out what sort of veggies or fruit you will want to grow. From there on set up can be as expensive or as cheap as you’d like. You can either buy containers or scrounge for them, 200l drums cut in half lengths ways also make excellent growing beds. Buckets are also good growing mediums and extremely cheap. The other alternative if you still want your courtyard to look presentable and if you’re a little handy with tools you can make your own wooden veggie boxes. You will have to make sure there is plenty of drainage in whatever medium you use.
One of the first things we bought was a bokashi bucket, which while it works well enough, it fills up pretty fast and smells anyway, after 3 months we went looking for an additional way of composting our leftovers. At the time I was toying with 3 possibilities, a worm farm, another bokashi bucket or normal composter or something else. I decided to go with something else, as we were trying to save money the other two were expensive options. What we did was find a 50l container and added 20l of soil on the bottom, then added the bokashi contents in the container and whilst holding our breath we added another 20l of soil on top and left it to decompose for a further 2-3 weeks after which it will smell more like wet soil.
Soil?
Unfortunately due to it being a courtyard we had to buy potting mix, I could’ve dug a nice big hole in my in-laws front yard but I suspect they would not be all that impressed. Because we already had the bokashi bucket we did not need to spend mega money on the premium potting mixes available and where able to use the cheapest stuff we could find. Generally I do not mix the potting mix with the compost, I add in 1 inch of potting mix on the bottom, add in the compost, about another inch, and then fill the container up to about ½ inch from the rim.
What did work?
Wooden Veggie boxes: the wooden veggie boxes worked better than I had imagined basil, squash, thyme, capsicums and tomatoes grew quite well drainage if excellent.
Containers: currently growing several winter veggies in the containers and they seem to be going reasonably well, but at the moment it is still too early to tell for certain. The carrots on the other hand have worked out extremely well, and the radishes that I currently have in a 100mm deep container are growing like crazy.
We also currently have several fruit trees in self watering pots, a cumquat which I have had less than six months and it already has fruit which is almost ripe, a dwarf nectarine tree and an Irish strawberry tree, they are all growing faster than I thought they would considering they are confined to a pot, using the same soil mixture as the containers
Polystyrene containers: onions, carrots (small round variety) worked well.
Buckets: plastic buckets seemed to have a mixed result, my sole strawberry plant has tripled in size since I removed it from its original container, and our Basil seems quite content as well.
What didn’t work?
Wooden Veggie boxes: the strawberry plant did not fare as well as the rest, mostly because it got overshadowed by the other plants, although I did get around 15 strawberries during the season which tasted great, or the one I could get my hands on before the ants did.
Containers: need plenty of drainage, but otherwise successful so far.
Polystyrene containers: I haven’t had anything that didn’t grow in the polystyrene containers.
Buckets: The tomato plants have grown slower than usual and have not born any fruit yet even after being in there for over the required time.
Good experiences
Fruit and veggies
We have plenty of small lizards scooting about the place eating caterpillars and the like acting as a natural pest control.
Bad experiences
Bloody caterpillars mostly cabbage moths but also a few hawk moths!! I haven’t had any problems since I have been using a chilli, garlic and some dish washing liquid mix as a spray. Plenty of ants as well, haven’t had any problems with aphids though
For seeds, instead of using a punnet full of seed raising mix I used normal potting mix but sprinkle seed raising mix over the seeds and then water. The punnets then get placed in my green house which in winter has a plastic cover and in summer 50% shade cloth.
If I plant seeds directly into the container where I expect them to grow I use the same principle, filling the container with the compost and potting mix but also sprinkling seed raising mix over the top after planting the seeds.
I also use 50% shade cloth for those containers in summer, late spring/autumn, in winter I tend to leave them open.
The greenhouse you can either make reasonably easily or buy, I got my two tier one from Bunning’s
By Kevin Mechelmans
