this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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I should really post up a picture of our vegetable garden - we’ve got a couple of hundred square meters of vege garden as well as a 30sqm greenhouse, and we grow everything from seed so we’re quite set up for it. We do live on a lifestyle block though.
I’d also be shocked if we only got 1kg of courgettes from each plant too. Last year we had 3 and couldn’t give them away quickly enough to keep up while also eating them everyday. Some with cucumbers. We’ve also got about 40-50 brassicas in the ground, and are on our 3rd year of our own garlic and onion supply, and aiming to survive on our own potatoes only this year as well - last year harvested about 100kg worth and this year aiming to 3-4x that. We’re definitely keen gardeners though so I know that’s not for everyone.
Home gardening at scale can definitely be cheaper than store bought. But as you've said, most people don't have the space.
Yeah you'd probably get more than 1KG per plant. They grow so much so fast.
I must be doing something wrong. Half the time I only get one cucumber from a plant. Sometimes I'll get a good plant and get three cucumbers. Never more or faster than we can eat though. But I'm only planting a couple of plants.
Do you manage to stagger or store a lot of it so it can last you through the year?
And do you have a good way to deal with pests? One issue we have is caterpillars in the broccoli, so we tend to only grow it over the winter.
On the pest front my old man (who used to be a commercial market gardener for a few years) recommended derris dust for the brassicas. We haven’t used it (and there is mixed opinions on its health impact online) but that’s potentially an option. Insect netting is the best for us though.
We’re currently planting to build a fully netted area in our garden around 50sqm for that reason.
I think the netting option is best. I've heard of people building frames over their gardens for the netting (it sounds like that's what you're doing).
To be honest I'm going off growing brassicas, in favour of things you can't get for dirt cheap. It's hard to make growing broccoli worthwhile when you can get giant ones for $2 at the right times.
Fair enough too. Probably depends on motivation as well - we grow our own for many reasons including a goal of self sufficiency and a better understanding of what’s in the food we eat so it’s not just economics for us.
We’ve obviously invested a fair bit in getting the garden set up, but once you can grow from seed (and especially saving your own seed) it might be just a few dollars for a few hundred seeds (depending on the crop) and some plants (beans, tomato’s, watermelons etc) that are super easy to save seed from. We’re even self sufficient for things like popcorn (and have a couple of kilos worth of seed left - some which we’ll still eat) so that makes a difference too.
Lastly though we just love gardening, and I really enjoy showing my kids the lifecycle and getting them involved in the process. They get to choose and manage some crops of their own, and always speak with pride when we eat the things they’ve contributed to.
That's really cool. If we had more space I'd like to think we would grow more.
Don't know how big your garden is, but I've always found for a small garden like ours broccoli/cauliflower isn't worth it for the amount of space they take up. You only ever get 1 or 2 harvests as well.
I agree with you're take though. I also don't grow things like carrots, potatoes etc. as they're almost always cheap
Our garden is on the small side. 1m wide, maybe 6m long. Built into a retaining wall. So yeah, not many broccoli fit.
Garlic and onion store super well. We still have some 2 year old garlic which has done fine. Cool dark place and you are good to go. Potatoes can start to root up over time but still perfectly edible. In ground storage for root veg seems to do well for us as well (although some of our carrots end up a bit wonky looking) but wouldn’t leave potatoes in once the ground is getting too wet.
I think cucumbers did particularly well last year due to all the rain and just enough sunshine too. Cucumbers are heavy feeders though so we usually fertilise them every couple of weeks (with homemade fertiliser so it’s cheap).
With our brassicas once it’s white butterfly / caterpillar time we put insect netting over them. Mitre10 had some reasonable insect netting cloches which are fine to start with. We find them quite prone to bolting if they get too much Sun so also recommend planting them in a semi shaded area of your garden. Over summer the area we plant them only gets 3-4 hours of Sun a day and that seems to be plenty.
Thanks for the tips! Do you try to stagger your planting to stop them all being ready at the same time?
If the plants I’ve mentioned I find they either stay growing for a long time (cucumber, courgette) or store very well (garlic, onion etc). We do multiple batches of onions and carrots still but the others I mentioned there usually just one. Brassicas, beans etc we do usually stagger though, as well as getting early starts in the greenhouse and with a seedling warming mat.
You know, it sounds like a full time job 😆
I feel ya. It’s a hobby for us so we don’t mind the time, but we probably spend at least a couple of hours a week each in the garden.
I'm amazed it's only a couple of hours a week! That would be well worth the time investment, I'd think. Especially if you enjoy it 🙂
Just to put it out there - super jealous that you're able to do this :)
Come join us in the wops. With Starlink everywhere is pretty liveable now I reckon.
Haha, I moved from a company with a lot of younger Grad types, into a Team with a lot of more seasoned members, and a lot of them are in the outskirts of the city in "lifestyle blocks".
Sort of warming up to the idea haha.