By nutritionist Catherine Saxelby

Reality cooking shows (such as Masterchef and MKR), kitchen garden programs at schools and growers’ markets have all helped stimulate our interest in food, cooking and fresh produce, especially home grown. Not only is growing your own herbs, vegetables and fruit very satisfying, it also has lots of benefits. Read on.

Benefits you'll get by growing your own The basics Growing herbs Growing vegetables Growing fruit Cut your waste Composting

Benefits you'll get by growing your own

We all know that home-grown fruit and veg are great because they’re organic (if you don’t use any artificial fertilisers or synthetic chemicals) and encourage us to eat fresh unprocessed food.

Having a veggie patch helps save money, and if we produce more than we need of one thing we can swap with someone for what they grow or give excess away to family and friends. Another advantage that’s often overlooked is that it also gets you outdoors doing something physically active, getting fresh air and some sunshine. Growing our own also helps us to teach our kids where their food comes from, how it was grown, and to role model to our kids that fresh produce is important.

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The basics

Growing herbs

Some herbs are so easy to grow you’ll wonder why you have wasted time and money buying them in the first place.

Basil grows incredibly easily in the summer months. If you pinch off the flowers, the basil will re-shoot and you’ll have enough basil to use fresh in your cooking or to blend into pesto (along with olive oil, walnuts and Parmesan) and store in the freezer for a quick sauce for pasta. To grow basil:

• simply buy a pot with several seedlings
• separate out the seedlings (being careful not to break too many roots)
• and plant directly in the garden.

Parsley is another very easy to grow herb. Sprinkle the seeds in a strip of soil in the garden and cover. Apart from watering or the occasional shower of rain, there’s nothing else to do. It grows well most of the year round which means you’ll virtually never have to buy parsley.

Other good herbs to grow at home are mint, thyme, sage and chives.

You can also pot basil seedlings or parsley seeds and keep them on a sunny window sill or on a balcony. Mint is ideal in a pot as it tends to overtake the garden.

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Growing vegetables

An easy vegetable to start with is cherry tomatoes. A packet of seeds thrown into the garden will provide a lot of cherry tomatoes – you’ll be able to use them in salads, kids lunch boxes or even make a fresh cherry tomato sauce for a pasta dish. Throw any rotten ones back in the garden and you’ll get another round of cherry tomatoes.

You can also put a small chilli plant into the garden. It will keep on growing and will provide you with chillies all year round.

Other easy vegetables to grow include silverbeet, spinach, rocket, lettuce, capsicum, cucumber and choko. You may even be able to easily grow something that you like but is hard to come by or is expensive, such as zucchini flowers.

Growing fruit

After the plants are established, passionfruit vines and grape vines produce prolific fruit. Strawberries are great, as they keep spreading and making more. Children also have fun finding them under the leaves.

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Cut your waste

By growing your own herbs that are commonly used in recipes (such as mint, thyme, parsley) you’re able to pick just what you need and leave the rest on the plant for another time. Compare this to buying a bunch, using a small sprig or two then throwing the rest away!

Composting

Composting goes hand in hand with gardening. The veggie scraps can be used in a compost heap and the compost created can be added to the garden to enrich the soil. A worm farm or Bokashi bucket is ideal for small kitchens or apartments.

More articles by renowned dietitian and nutritionist Catherine Saxelby

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