I will be the first to raise my hand and say I’m not a gardener. Which is funny, because I grow my own food…so I guess I am a gardener.
But I wouldn’t say I have green fingers, or that I relish the thought of going to spend hours out in my garden as a hobby.
When I first started growing my own food I was simply just trying to save money at the supermarket. But I quickly learned that even if you’re not a ‘real gardener’, you still need the same things to make your food grow as they do.
In that time since, I have done countless hours of reading, watching and listening to see how the ‘real gardeners’ do it. There is a wealth of information out there, and it can feel a little bit overwhelming at times, because it’s hard to know where to start.
So if you’re like me, and you want to grow food, but you don’t really have a keen interest in gardening, I’ve made a list of the top 3 things you will need to grow healthy food in plentiful crops.
Water is pretty important for plants. They take the water, combine it with carbon dioxide from the air, and turn it into carbohydrates (sugars) for food. They make their own food out of thin air!
If my ability to be a good parent was ever measured against my ability to keep indoor plants alive, I would have failed miserably, because I always forget to water them! And we all know the result of not watering plants – they die!
The good thing about growing food though is that it’s generally done outside, so I have the benefit of weather on my side and the rain can help me if I forget to water them myself!
The best way to water your plants is at the soil level, and for an extended amount of time every 3-4 days instead of every day.
You can also set up an irrigation system that will water for you, but I really prefer to water by hand because I get to really observe and examine what is happening around and to my plants as I water.
The energy from sunlight is what plants use to convert the water and carbon dioxide into food. And sunlight makes me feel pretty good so I’m sure it makes the plants feel pretty good too.
Generally your vegetables will need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight every day, however there are some that will grow in the shade, like lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, beans, peas, carrots, beetroot, mint, coriander and parsley.
Other vegetables like tomatoes, capsicum and pepper, corn, cucumber, watermelon, pumpkin and eggplants need full sun, which is 6-8 hours, so it’s best to find a part of the garden where the sun hits most to be able to grow these.
Although soil is last on my list, it’s actually the one thing we can affect the most.
The amazing thing about soil is that it’s alive, and in fact holds the foundation of all life on earth (if plants don’t grow, us humans and animals have nothing to eat, therefore we can’t live).
The best soil feels a bit like chocolate cake, and looks just as good! But if your soil isn’t like that right now, there’s still hope. Soil can always be fixed, and usually you have a lot of those fixers easily available around your home.
The more I learn about growing food, the more I realise just how important soil is for not only growing great plants, but also ones that taste good and make me feel good too.
My ultimate goal is not to have to rely on the supermarket for anything, so growing my own food is a big part of that. It means being more intentional about what I eat, buy and use, and sometimes it can even feel a little bit sacrificial. But the satisfaction I know I will have from doing it myself is what keeps me going.
And the more I learn about going back to basics and living with intention, the more I discover just how far away from that simple life we have come.
I’d love to have you join me on my journey to self-sufficiency over on my Youtube channel. Make sure you subscribe so you always get notified when a new video is updated