Eight easy things to grow for non-gardeners

 Our cat Huddle enjoying the inside garden    

We've seen a huge rise in inflation over the past year.  This has hit food especially hard.  It's currently at a 10 year high and likely to grow more.  Consequently, many of us are looking at ways to spend less on food as we stretch our budgets to impossible levels.

I am not an amazing gardener.  I killed almost everything I tried to grow until I was almost 30.  While I grew up on a farm amongst a family of green thumbs, I was blessed with brown.  Today my garden is a haphazard mess.  It is seldom weeded and often dug up by chickens, cats and other critters.  Nevertheless, we do manage to eat fresh from our garden and indoor plants all year round.  What I've learned over time is that you don't need a lot of space, time, money or skill to grow some things.  That whether you live in an apartment, flat with others, rent or own your own home, growing food is possible.  And all things fresh and free are good.  Especially now.  So here are a few of my favourite, simple things to grow for the non-gardeners wanting to save a few dollars at the check-out.

1. Spring Onions

Did you know you can just cut the ends off these, put them in dirt and they will grow?  Since learning this these have become a garden staple.  When I need spring onions I just snip off some of the leaves and let the plant keep on growing.  When they do get a little old and huge over time, I just buy some more when I'm next planning a meal that uses them and put the ends into the garden.  They're extremely low maintenance, basically grow themselves and most pests aren't interested in them.  You can grow them in a pot or in the garden.  I buy these only once or twice a year but eat them fresh year round.  Spring onions are high in fibre which aids digestion.  They also have antibacterial and antiviral properties to help keep you healthy!

This isn't a huge saving, but if you buy spring onions even once a month, this will save you about $15.50 over a year

One of my 'failed' garlic crops.  So exciting
to learn I could just use the greens!

2. Garlic Greens

I have tried and failed many a time to grow garlic for the bulbs.  I eagerly await their harvest and instead find just a few teeny bulbs which are hard to peel.  This is likely due to my total lack of spending time in the garden.  But rather than giving up, I've just changed tact.  Now I use their leaves.  Garlic leaves do not taste as strong as the bulbs, but are a really lovely addition to stir fries, soups and pasta dishes.  Like spring onions you can just snip them and leave the bulbs growing in the garden, and you can grow in the garden or in a pot. If you have never planted garlic before, all you do is plant one of the cloves pointy side up and wait for it to sprout - it's that simple.  While you are supposed to plant garlic in Winter if planting for the greens, just plant them whenever you like.  Garlic leaves contain all the same nutritional values as the bulbs - it boosts your immune system, aids your heart health and works as an anti-inflammatory.  And they're lower in fructose than the bulbs, so easier to digest - perfect for someone on FODMAPS or a low inflammation diet.

Might not save you anything BUT adds nutrition and flavour to your meals at no cost.

3. Ginger

Fresh ginger is the root of the ginger plant.  But, like garlic, you can also eat the leaves.  Whilst still gingery and peppery, the leaves are milder in taste than the root and are good in stir fries and salads.  Like garlic, I grow ginger for the leaves as can just leave it in the garden and let it grow.  I find this actually grows better in pots (although that's partly because my chickens like to dig it up).  You can just take a section of ginger root with a knobbly part and plant it with the knobbly bit toward the top.  It usually sprouts within a week.  Ginger is great for your immunity and managing digestive health.

Again, this may not save you anything, but it costs you nothing (if you already buy root ginger) and adds flavour to your meals for nothing.

My parsley has been growing since before
my eldest was born!  This is her as a baby
picking it fresh from the garden.

4. Parsley (or another favourite herb)

Parsley is probably my most used herb because it's so versatile.  I use it in a range of meals - in soups, in pasta, in salads, for garlic bread.  I even use it as a substitute for coriander (cos my partner doesn't like fresh coriander) in curries to add that freshness coriander lends.  It adds a nice lift to meals.  You can grow it in pots or in the ground - this is the same for most herbs.  Just growing one of your favourite herbs means you don't have to buy it and it adds some freshness to your meals - even if you can't afford to buy much fresh veg.  Parsley is high in Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Vitamin K (which helps with blood clotting).  If parsley is not for you, mint and rosemary are also very versatile and easy to grow.

If you use a lot of your favourite herb - just growing it yourself will save you between $12 to $36 per year AND will make your meals taste so much yummier!  Add more herbs to your garden and increase savings while adding flavour!  I'm a huge fan of fresh basil, oregano and thyme.  Basil can be fussy outside so I grow it year round in pots indoors.  I have a selection of herbs growing on my kitchen windowsill so it's easy to add them to meals as I'm making them.

5. Silverbeet

I think of silverbeet as the quintessential Kiwi green.  It is hardy and easy to grow.  You can grow it in the garden or in pots.  It's extremely versatile - you can steam and blitz it in large quantities for curries, use it fresh in salads, or instead of spinach in lasagne or cannelloni.  And it's super good for you!  It has similar qualities to parsley but is also high in iron and calcium.  If you don't like the stems, don't use them.  Personally, I love them stir fried in butter with a little garlic, salt and pepper and coriander.  Of course, if you hate silverbeet, growing spinach or kale is just as useful and can save a lot of money at the supermarket.  I just find silverbeet the easiest to grow (and I like it more than kale).

If you use a lot of salad greens, this is where the money's at.  Growing your own greens can save you $4.50 - $13.50 per week.  That's at least $234 per year!

6. Courgettes

These are probably the hardest thing to grow on my list - but they're still easy to grow.  These do grow best in the garden although I'm sure you could grow them in a large pot with good drainage if you wanted to.  You can grow them almost all year round (besides Winter) and you can freeze them so you can use them year round.  Courgettes are high in fibre, potassium and vitamin C, as well as vitamin A.  Courgettes do not have a particularly strong flavour so are a versatile 'filler' fruit (yep, they are a fruit - same family as cucumber and melons) in meals.  I use it in everything from salads to curries to bolognaise.  If left growing a little too long, they develop into marrows which are delicious stuffed!

If you usually use a couple of courgettes a week, growing them yourself can save you $80 plus per year.

Delicious lemon curd biscuits!              

7. Limes or other small citrus trees

Having fruit trees is not limited to home owners or people in long term rentals.  Believe it or not you can actually grow some citrus trees in pots.   Citrus fruits are high in fibre, vitamin C and anti-inflammatory flavonoids.  Plus they add a zesty lift to any meal.  They can be used for sweet or savoury dishes and are a fabulous addition to most drinks.  You can freeze the juice, or even freeze lemons or limes whole if you're using them for the zest.

We use a lot of lemons at home - especially in Winter - so I know they can be expensive!  When they're not in season, lemons are about $10 a kg - that's almost $2 per lemon.  And that's nothing on limes.  Just two years ago, limes were seen reaching prices of up to $75.99 per kilo.  If you can afford to get a small tree, when it starts fruiting, you'll get your money back many times over.

At the moment it's almost peak lemon season and they cost almost a dollar each.  It costs about $30 for a small citrus tree.  If you go through 2 lemons a week, you'll save about $100 in a year so it's well worth the investment.
   
8. Something that you love

This is just if you have time and energy to spare giving something a go.  I love chillies.  Consequently, I grow them.  My first chillies came from plants given to me by my brother, and others grown from seeds harvested from supermarket chillies.  Because I grown them indoors I do regularly 'feed' them with seaweed or seaweed based fertiliser.  I am very lucky to have a big bay window, so grow them inside where they're only just beginning to slow down with fruiting now (just a few weeks away from Winter).  From this seasons harvest I have enough chillies to last me at least a year* along with having gifted many to friends.  Chillies are a food that I love.  Growing them not only saves me money, but adds excitement and flavour to many of the dishes cooked often in our home, from curries, to pasta to soups.  They add a freshness and boost to almost everything.

But chillies are my thing.  For some folk I know it's tomatoes.  They invest time and energy over Summer growing hundreds of Sweet 100s or Beefsteaks or Moonglows.  They eat them with gusto and turn the excess into sauce or pickles to store for use over Winter.  Maybe you like lettuce.  A $2 pack of seeds, some potting mix and a few small pots could see you eating it for almost free year-round if you have a little space on a sunny windowsill somewhere.  Choose something simple you love and grow it yourself.  Not only will you save money and add flavour to meals, but you get to literally bring something you love into this world.  And then you can eat it.

My chillies - still fruiting even though it's almost Winter!

* I've frozen some and dried some.  There are lots of different ways of storing food.

On Growing Our Own

We have a garden.

This is some of it - courgettes growing in our old bath tub!

We don't have an all-encompassing-survive-off-the-land style garden, but we have a garden that grows vegetables that we eat, and herbs that make cooking exciting (and delicious).  This may sound like a mundane thing.  But it feels pretty magical.

I grew up for the most part in the country.  Having a garden was pretty bog standard in that country lifestyle, along with many other things that helped our family to be fairly self-sufficient in terms of food*.  My parents taught us how to grow plants, and encouraged us to do so - giving us our own little patch in the big garden to grow what we wanted.  But I soon gave up on my piddly little radishes.  The whole enterprise was just not exciting enough.  Nothing seemed to happen fast enough, and I was never the most patient child.

And big me was much the same.  The few times a poor plant was foisted on me from well meaning friends and relatives it didn't take much before it perished.  I just figured I had a 'brown thumb' - plants were just not for me.  This wasn't helped by the fact that I've always hated the feel of dirt on my hands** and was perpetuated by living in flats - where starting a garden always seemed an exercise in futility when you moved as often as I did through my early 20's.  I only lived in one flat that had a garden, and when it was my turn to 'tend' it (we had a roster, so I had to do it once a month) I'd kinda just phone it in (sorry Mindy, Miriam and Steph, I did feed the turtles though)...

But in our flat in Pt Chev we had a little success with a small vege patch which had been put in by my gung-ho husband.  Because it wasn't mine, I didn't care about it.  But then, stuff started to grow in it.  And then I had a little interest in it.  And then I was home more than Murray was so it made sense that I looked after it.  And then it was pretty much my patch.  In that garden we managed to grow rhubarb and kale (two very hardy crops).  Which is not really a lot.  But to me it felt like a success as:
a) We'd grown something that didn't die
b) We'd grown things we could actually eat in our own back yard.

Once we bought our house here in Sunnyvale, we decided all bets were off.  Whilst the inside of our house remained as is until recently, I started remodeling our gardens as soon as we got here.  I got rid of the flax and lilies (and cockroaches) to make way for herb gardens.  And Murray, with help from his Dad, put in some raised beds along the sunniest fence line for veges.  We were all set to get stuck in and 'grow our own'.

But with unexpected surgery followed immediately by pregnancy, then more surgery, then a baby then another (unexpected) pregnancy and baby we've struggled to put in as much energy as we'd have liked.  Nevertheless, doing little bits here and there over the past 3 1/2 years has started to pay off.

When we arrived there was an orange tree.  Now our property boasts a nectarine, a pear, a mini-feijoa, guavas and a pomegranate tree.  The trees were gifts besides the feijoa which we planted over Etta's whenua***, the guavas which were 'rehomed' from the bach and the macadamias that were 'rehomed' from that-spot-up-the-road.  While these are not all fruiting (yet) we enjoyed our first pear and nectarine bounty this past Summer.  And Etta's tree has its first few feijoas poised in readiness for picking some time in the next month.

In fact, I was recently curious as to how many edibles our small section homed so I counted them.  At last count it was 30 different herbs, plants and trees**** (including lavender, aloe-vera and puha - all of which are edible).  All of which, bar the orange tree, we have planted ourselves.

So how has my thumb slowly changed from brown to green you ask?  The truth is it hasn't.  My basic principle when it comes to gardening is if it doesn't work, try something else.  We have planted a great many things that have not survived: carrots, broccoli, beetroot have all succumbed in our garden (mostly due to diligent, evil cats).  And my first attempt at growing stuff in the greenhouse was thwarted by my inability to remember to actually water the plants.  So everything that grows well at our place either does so because it's hardy or it's interesting enough for me to pay attention to it.  I recently set an alarm for watering in the greenhouse that goes off every morning so I can't forget to water in there (hopefully I will build a habit and remember on my own).  This is the only reason anything is alive in there besides slugs, snails and skinks.

Another basic principle I have is that, like painting, gardens need a decent primer.  So starting out with decent soil means right off the bat you are more likely to succeed.  Putting in raised beds really helped with that.  It meant regardless on the soil quality at our house, we could (almost immediately) plant a successful garden.  Composting our food and plant waste helps feed and maintain the health of our garden.  And throwing our coffee grinds into the mix doesn't hurt it either (and helps justify Murray's weekend coffee benders).

We're not big on chemicals and pesticides (and I'm a tight-arse) so we try to manage disease and bugs through organic fixes like home made sprays, companion planting and plant rotation - none of which are difficult things to do after a little practice at which solutions work for you and your garden.

And now, after our first bumper Summer harvest, I'm totally in love with it.  I even decided to make up an annual planner for our section so that we can eat more from our garden year round:

While I initially started gardening entirely for practical reasons, of late I have started growing more plants that just make me happy.  Artichokes are edible, but they are also flower into the most glorious bee traps.  Pattypan squash are called pattypan squash!  Not only do they have the cutest name in the world, but they have to be one of the prettiest vegetables out!  Cape gooseberries remind me of picking them as a child at the house of a friend of the family and peeling off the papers for a tart treat.  There is such magic and colour and life in a garden.  I'm only just discovering this now.

The most beautiful artichoke flower with bees

Cape gooseberry in its cage

Parsley seed stars

Baby Patty pan squash

Etta with one of our favorite garden pals

 A small haul of cherry tomatoes

And the best part of all of this is I get to share this with my family.  In the meals I make, and the learning and play outside in and among that vibrant colour and life.  And not just our kids, but with our broader family and community.  It's an opportunity for me to share resources with those in need.  An opportunity to share plants when our gardens runneth over in reseeded babies.  An opportunity to feel pride and joy in the simplest thing.  And it's all in our own back yard.

* chickens for eggs, fishing (for fish), fruit trees - contained and wild, going mushrooming, berry picking, hunting for deer and pigs, working for payment in 'half a beast' (half of a butchered cow - which kept a family in meat for a long time).

** And flour and clay.  I just don't like it.  I can't really explain it but it makes me feel pretty icky.  If I make you scones or gingerbread just know I must really care about you cos I have to breadcrumb the butter into the flour which means touching the flour which is horrid.  And I can actually throw clay - it's something I can naturally do.  But I really can't cope with the feeling of the clay on my hands, so I gave up on ceramics (yes yes, I'm a weirdo.  Whatever).

*** Abby had a tree too.  A mandarin tree.  But Murray accidentally mowed over it... Come Spring she will have a new tree - one of the Macadamia's currently thriving in our greenhouse.  Which will be housed in something bright to deter from any future mowing...

**** dill, rosemary, borage, thyme (x2) oregano, basil (2), fennel, nasturtium, parsley (x2), mint, courgette (x2), silverbeet, kale, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, artichoke, strawberries, gooseberries, rhubarb, orange, pear, mini feijoa, nectarine, pomegranate, guava, macadamia, aloe vera, lavender (x2), puha