Our chemical-free vegie patch

Eating chemical-free food from your garden 

Where possible, we try to do things the simpler way. We're too busy to fuss with perfect, it's got to be doable, practical and efficient. Like these vegie boxes above. Some are recycled potato crates, some made from an old boards, one was a kit. What matters is getting them set up and the soil going! We haven't lined them with plastic either. Yuck!

From the beginning our focus has been the health of our animals and ourselves. We are what we eat, after all! With the health system in crisis, people dying of preventable diseases and the lack of nutrient in modern fruits and vegetables, (we won't even talk about the lack of taste!) our goal is to improve our health and well being by controlling how our food is grown. The end goal is a big one - use no chemicals at all. 

The lies we are told as consumers 

Listen or watch any gardening show and you get messages about what products to use at different times of the year to control pests and diseases. 

It's expensive and it's all lies. 

You don't need fungicides, herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers at all, but big corporations don't want you to know that! They profit from your ignorance. You don't have to be a slave to any of that. We have proven it with our vegetable garden, for instance. It took a couple of years for the soil to become alive again, rejuvenate itself and shake off its addiction to superphosphate, but now we use nothing except a worm solution and a scattering of calcium where needed. THAT'S ALL! There are no bugs eating our vegies. The birds are eating the bugs. Moths and butterflies fly right over and lay their eggs elsewhere. Sucking insects? Nope. Mildew? Nope. Fungal infections? Nope.

So why is this happening? 

When stressed, plants produce acetic acid, a substance that bugs LOVE. When photosynthesising properly, without stress from lack of nutrients in the soil or poor water absorption, plants produce sugars, which bugs HATE. It's really that simple. 

Every dinner has something from our garden in it. The following are some of the fruits, vegetables we grow and products we have made from our vegie patch and small orchard:

• Apples, pears, nectarines, quinces
  
• Blueberries, strawberries, currants
• celery, silverbeet, spinach, spring onion, leek, kale, 
• zucchini, beans, lettuce, pumpkin, swedes
  
• thyme, rosemary, lemon balm, 
• tomatoes, potatoes
  
• celery salt
• dried rosemary and thyme 
• spring onion powder
• tomato salsa
• preserved lemons
• dried coriander leaves and seeds
  

I didn't have much experience with growing my food, other than lettuce, tomatoes and potatoes when we were living in suburbia. This is all new to me and through trial and error I have figured out what grows best here, with the least fuss. You can too! Even if it's just a pot of herbs on your balcony or in your living room under a grow light.

Growing your own food, having control over what goes into your body, is freedom.