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caption96womensfitnessmagazine.com.au womensfitnessaustralia @womensfitnessmag @womensfitnessau WORDS STEPHANIE COLLS PHOTOGRAPHY GETTY IMAGES guide to… GIY: GROW IT YOURSELF Want organic, seasonal, sustainable fruit and veg? The easiest way to get it (for cheap) is to get your hands dirty EVEN IF YOU THINK you’ve been cursed with a black thumb, you can grow your own food at home. But before you dig up your whole backyard, or fi ll your balcony with pots, there are a few basics you need to be down with to make sure your foray into backyard farming is a success. PRIME POSITION Plants get their energy to grow and produce food for you from the sun. So, as a general rule, a vegetable garden needs at least six hours direct sunlight a day. If you don’t get that much sun in any one place in your backyard, or you’ve only got paving, concrete or a balcony, don’t throw your hands up in despair just yet. You can grow pretty much anything in a pot and, provided your pots aren’t massive, you can move them around to follow the sun as the seasons change. Better still, if you’re handy with a screwdriver, attach casters to the bottom of your planter boxes so you can just push them to their next location. No excuses, then. FROM THE GROUND UP Soil quality is everything when it comes to growing veg. After all, that’s where the plants get their nutrients from, so you need to make a tasty meal for them if you want to end up with a tasty meal for you. If you’re growing veg in garden beds, add lots of organic matter such as well-composted cow manure or blood and bone. If you’re using pots, use the best quality potting mix you can a ord, and add a little slow-release fertiliser. You may also want to water your babies with a liquid fertiliser, such as Seasol, every fortnight for an added boost. WHAT TO GROW? This one’s easy. What fruit and vegetables do you normally buy at the supermarket? That answers your question, with one small caveat. What you can grow and when depends on where you live (Aust

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captionwomensfitnessmagazine.com.au womensfitnessaustralia @womensfitnessmag @womensfitnessau 97 WORDS STEPHANIE COLLS PHOTOGRAPHY GETTY IMAGES Eat t leaves of your lemon tree, but you’ll also kill everything that pollinates your fl owers. The result? No fresh produce for you! So make sure you know what you’re dealing with before you do anything. Look up what’s happening to your plants online or in a reference book, like What Garden Pest or Disease is That? by Judy McMaugh (CSIRO Publishing, $49.95), for organic solutions to bug problems that won’t leave your garden (and your plate) barren. WET AND WILD Without enough water, plants can’t take up nutrients from the soil, so they won’t grow. Full stop. If you’ve got garden beds, water them deeply once or twice a week rather than a little every day to encourage plants to send their roots deeper into the soil and become more self-su cient. A dripper system is the most e cient way to water garden beds and you can buy all the components from a hardware shop, but a soaker hose will also do the job. If you’ve got your farm set up in pots or planters, you’ll need to water them more often, particularly in hot or windy weather. In that case, it’s time to make friends with your watering can. WHACK THOSE WEEDS Sometimes it’s fun to watch rogue plants making a bid for dominance, and self-sown ones are a great way of getting plants for free, but chances are if you didn’t plant it and you don’t know what it is, you’ll need to rip it out. Keep on top of weeds because they can compete with your veg for nutrients and if you leave them long enough to go to seed, watch out. That saying, one year’s seeds equals seven years’ weeds, is true. MUST MULCH Mulch is something you use to cover the surface of the soil in your garden. It could be pebbles, bark chips, old newspapers or straw. Why? It’s a gardening triple threat. Out of space? Try: Community gardens If you don’t have e nough room at your place, there are communit