Introduction

Over the past few days, I have been reviewing what has been happening in my little garden over the past year. I’ve been looking at what has worked well and badly, what I could improve in general and anything new that I can do in the new year. When I started my little vegetable patch, I decided that this first year or so would be all about just having a go and seeing what works and what doesn’t as the last time I had anything to do with a vegetable garden was on my grandad’s farm in the north west of England-I now live in Sydney, Australia. Things, like the climate, are different between the two, meaning I am constantly learning-that’s no bad thing!

There are two things that I would like to do as general goals over the next year. The first one is to continue to grow vegetables that I can use in the kitchen. The second thing I’d like to do is to grow more flowers, especially native Australian flowers. Who doesn’t love flowers-they are bright and colourful in all sorts of shapes and sizes-we all need a bit of cheer these days. With growing flowers, I also want to help provide homes and/or food for things like bees and butterflies (amongst others) in my garden-such critters help pollinate my vegetables and also helps to control the critters that could be considered ‘pests’.

Why do I want to do these things?

There are several reasons why I want to be more self-sufficient, even if I can’t be fully so.

The first reason is mainly around my job as a horticulturist. My day-to-day work is normally very physical. While my official title is ‘Site Manager’, I still have to spend most of my time on the tools and doing the same sort of physical work as the rest of my team. Along with this, I am the only female doing this work at my work location, acting like a delicate flower will not go down well AT ALL! This leads to needing healthy, nutritious and preferably tasty food to eat-allowing me to stand a chance at keeping healthy. Growing veg at home allows me to pick food as it becomes ready to eat and have that for lunch or dinner that day.

Another reason for growing as much of my own veg as possible is to allow us all to snack on things like cherry tomatoes or capsicums instead of a constant stream of chocolate or cake, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good piece of cake or a biscuit every now and then, but I’ve found I feel terrible if I don’t eat plenty of fresh food! With my ‘San Marzano’ tomatoes, they will be used for passata.

Another reason for growing my own vegetables is that I really don’t like spending any time in the supermarket. I obviously have to still go in for certain things, but the less time I have to spend in such a place, the better it is for my sanity!

Successes of 2023

What I consider to be my successes this year are that I managed to get some peas and beans from my attempts over winter. I also grew some sweet peas as well, which had a delightful smell!

Failures of 2023

As I have a habit of getting a bit excited when I see seedlings germinate, and because of this I have often potted them up a bit too early. As a consequence many of these died.

Earlier this year, I bought myself one to those tumbler compost bins that sit on a frame, where you can turn it with a handle. The trouble that I had with this was the fact that the frame couldn’t support the weight of the kitchen scraps that got put into the bin, so it didn’t work as it should. Needless to say, I got rid of it- I don’t have the space for useless items at home!

What do I want to achieve in the next year?

Firstly, I want to find a way to do my composting of kitchen scraps in the small space that I have, without a bin that collapses on me!

I also need to get more of plan together of what I want to grow, and how much of it I want. This will hopefully allow me to have a continuous supply of something to eat coming out of my garden. There are a wide range of varieties of vegetables that have slightly different seed sowing times, growing periods and harvest times, allowing for a long season of harvesting beetroots or beans, as two examples.

Over the longer term, I want to get away from using plastic in my garden, as well as having a garden that is as cost effective and environmentally sustainable as possible. This will need plenty of research on all aspects of gardening practices and materials in a patio space, along with the best sort of pots to replace my plastic ones.

Overall, I need to be organised! I am often a bit slap-dash with my home gardening. I also have to keep enjoying too, or there is no point in doing it.