One of the most common barriers to growing your own fruit and veges is often the complaint of not having enough space. And when we were living up in the hill suburbs, I used to empathize with this complaint, but Mum took up the challenge and in her section (that was so small that you could touch both ends of it without moving) mum grew tomatoes, lettuces, silver-beat, herbs, grapes and lemons.
So hopefully this post will give you absolutely no excuse and you can get out there and start growing all sorts of delicacies, because the following suggestions are low maintenance, and space efficient. And it will probably taste better than that freaky supermarket stuff that seems to never go bad, even though it has been flown half way round the world.
1.) Grow herbs! Basil, rosemary, coriander (especially good, because if it goes to seed, you can use the seeds as well as the leaves), parsley, sage, mint. The list is endless, and best of all, all of these tasty, edible, magical treats grow in teeny tiny pots and can spice up any meal in seconds
2.) Lemons. For this you need a bigger pot, but it wont kill your space, and if you ever move into a place with a bigger garden, cross-plant it. Lemon trees pretty much take care of themselves, and once they take off you can have lemon juice, lemon aid, lemon flavour in everything!!
3.) Strawberries. Put them in a pot, save them from any potential frosts, and pick the lovely, delicious, strawberries before the birds get them. Easy as that.
4.) Tomatoes. With a million and one different varieties, from cherry to different colours, tomatoes grow pretty well in a pot. They need a bit of TLC, but if you treat them right, come the summer months you will have the best tasting tomatoes in town, and you will wonder why you ever bought them from the supermarket in the first place.
5.) Lettuce. Grows easy, and you will never again have that problem of it being all wilted, because you can just pick it fresh as you need it.
You don’t need a whole heap of space to grow your own fresh produce, and once you get going you will have tastier, cheaper food that virtually has no food miles. Win Win Win! So once the winter starts to lift, get planting, and in the meantime check out these micro-garden ideas for inspiration.
Image credit: treenbean via flickr
