After buying a Thermomix I began cooking from scratch, which meant a huge increase in our diets of Fresh produce. For my birthday in 2018 my Best friend decided to gift me a "stock pot". It was literally a Pot with all of the herbs I needed to make my Vegetable stock paste. And things Grew from there. The herbs got too big to all be in one pot, so I bought some new pots and split them up. Then I decided to have a go at growing some tomatoes since they were also in the stock paste. I bought two cherry tomato plants from Bunnings and started growing them in pots along side my herbs. Soon, this too grew. I convinced my husband to build me some garden beds and we started trying to grow snow peas and cucumbers. This grew year after year, and I started watching videos about gardening, and reading about how to grow individual plants. I decided I wanted chickens, so again my lovely husband came to the rescue. He converted an old shed in our backyard into a chicken coop and run. This was great as we had intended to pull the shed down, but instead it was getting a second life. Finally, during the first Covid lockdown in 2020 I decided to reset my garden area; I moved all of my beds around to where the chickens are and refilled them with a combination of old dirt from the gardens, along with some new potting mix, rock minerals and lots of Seasol. I was ready to start my gardening on a larger scale, but I couldn't go into Bunnings to buy my seedlings, so I was forced to start my garden from seed. This is something I had always wanted to do, I just hadn't been ready for it, but now I had no choice. I ordered a few seed starting things from Bunnings for Click and Collect, I ordered some seeds of various plants and I started. Initial seed germination was done inside. We have a nice sunny window in the kids playroom where I could sit my seeds in a tray to capture water and provide warmth and sunlight. As the seedlings got larger I transplanted them into pots and eventually moved them outside to harden off before planting. These three beds along the house produced a large amount of food which was great, but it just wasn't enough for me. I wanted to grow so many different types of plants, and lots of different varieties. My kids have been involved in most parts of this garden, and they enjoy different things about it. Jax (6 years old) has loved helping his dad to build beds, coops and fences, while my daughter Scarlett (4 years old) is always keep to see what is growing, and to help spread the dirt and straw in the beds. Both of the kids have helped me plant seeds both indoors and in the garden. I hope that by being involved in the process, they will learn to love the garden as much as I do. In 2021 we started ripping out the broken spa in our backyard, we moved a fence to extend the garden area and add even more garden beds. we were doing all this while Metro-Victoria went in and out of lockdowns so we were doing lots of click and collect orders. I started buying some seeds online from a few different seed companies, and finding more varieties that I want to grow in the future. We are now up to twenty garden beds in our suburban garden. As we enter 2022 we have 20 tomato plants, (as well as a number of random ones my daughter planted when I was pruning), Sweet basil between each of the tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, rocket, bush beans, climbing beans, squash, zucchini (green, gold, and Lebanese), bush pumpkins, Capsicums, cayenne peppers, jalapeno's, parsnips, eggplants, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, butternut pumpkins and JAP pumpkins, Sunflowers, Zinnia's and a huge range or herbs. I am learning that no matter the size of my garden I will always want to expand it and grow more than what I currently am. The goal for me is to reduce my food costs by growing it in the garden, which also gives me a sense of peace and joy. You don't have to grow your own food, and you definitely don't have to do it on this scale, and its not for everyone, but I believe a good meal starts with good quality food, and the only way to know what you're really eating is to grow your own. Why not head over to my YouTube Channel and check out my Garden Tours.
