Most cucumbers sold in the supermarket are small to medium size, even though they can grow much bigger, so why aren't more larger sized cucumbers sold? Is it because the flavour of the cucumber decreases as the fruit gets bigger? Burpless cucumber variety (image above) The truth is, yes, sometimes older and larger cucumbers can taste awful
The other day, I received an email from Nytasha asking me if I could help her find out what was wrong with her lemon tree… Basically, Nytasha was puzzled by how bad the fruit (produced by her "seemingly healthy" lemon tree) tasted and if I had any experience or thoughts as to what was causing the
For our readers over in the USA (of whom they're many… THANKS) I thought I would inform you about how some Birdies raised garden beds are now starting to be sold on Amazon. Those that don't know, Birdies was one of the very first companies (about 12 or so years ago) to see a future
Lots of people would love to grow their own fresh vegetables but baulk at the idea because they simply don't have the space or desire to maintain a large garden bed. Sometimes it's the lack of permanency such as people who live in rental properties that prevents them from getting into food gardening knowing they
When I built our first raised vegetable garden beds 10 years ago there was no such thing as "kid friendly" or "vegetable friendly" treated pine wood, so I decided to line the inside of the sleepers with builders plastic just in case there was a risk of chemicals used in treating the sleepers (such as
Yesterday, I received an email asking what tool I recommend for high raised bed gardens and it just so happens there is a special tool I do use all the time for my raised beds gardens and it's called an entrenching tool (or ET). I tend to always misspeak and call it an ET tool,
If you are considering growing backyard olives then the Arbequina variety is worth checking out! Arbequina olive trees are a popular commercial variety of olive because they produce a good olive oil but they are also a common variety sold on the domestic market due to being an early fruiting tree and often produce
I often get asked, "what are you going to do with all that produce?" Sometimes people enquire because their first thought when seeing a glut of homegrown food is waste but here's how I see an oversupply of produce: Success – Whenever we get a great harvest I see the achievement. Backyard farming isn't always,
Article updated on 9th November 2017 – Added additional retailer to list Most of us realise (and accept) the internet is changing our behaviour in many different ways and buying plants or seeds for the home garden is one them! I personally think the move towards online plants and seeds is a good change for
Over the past few months, I've made some big changes to our vegetable garden and I intend to publicise these "improvements" (I should say) in detail in future articles and videos. But as the video at the end of this post shows, over the past few days I have concentrated my efforts on the central
Updated on 20th Sept 2022 If you have been reading Self Sufficient Me and watching some of my YouTube videos over the past several years, you’ll know how passionate I am about raised bed vegetable gardening. There are many advantages raised bed food gardens have over the traditional in-ground garden beds that use the furrow method
This article (and video) explains how to easily build a strong and practical trellis to grow a Dragon Fruit vine. Why grow dragon fruit (Pitaya) on a trellis? Dragon fruit plants are a vine. They grow by budding out from a stem segment (usually from the top of the segment) to form another segment approximately
All the images in this article come from three separate properties over the past few weeks during the holiday season. Fortunately for me, most of our friends and family are avid food growers so whenever we get together there's always plenty of interesting information to share about different food crops to grow in the backyard.
Growing conditions for the Grumichama Growing Grumichama plants (Eugenia Dombeyi) as a backyard fruit tree is certainly not something often talked about mainly because the Grumichama is not a very well known fruit tree. Actually, it's more like a large shrub and is often sold as a nice hedging plant (which also bears edible fruit
Where you position you vegetable garden, patch, allotment, or whatever you want to call it is very important for a few reasons. Firstly, most food crops need a good amount of sunlight to produce well and grow strong – food plants need a lot of energy to produce and it's the sun that provides most
If you've never really pondered growing Asian style greens in your garden before then I hope this mini article inspires you to have a go at some! In particular, I would like to sound out five special types of Asian food plants, which are equally great raw in salads or indeed cooked up in stir-fries, and they
Giving and receiving is part of human nature no matter how hardened one has become it still feels good to give and most would say even better to receive gifts! However, if you really want to step up the giving and receiving feeling even more then do it with something you can eat and particularly something
I'm a total advocate for stand up vegetable gardening because as we age it tends to get harder to get down and even harder to get back up! That's where raised bed food gardening comes into play as a wonderfully convenient way to work in the patch without too much bending. I've also got several old injuries and
Support dragon fruit pitaya on a trellis instead of post Most people grow the vine-like dragon fruit cactus on a post for support; however, dragon fruit plants can tend to "bush out" and out-grow the post over time. This extra growth can then lead to the plant fracturing under its own weight and losing limbs,
Some fruits to grow in winter to prevent fruit fly strike Fruit fly in Queensland can become a real pain for the backyard grower turning beautiful fruit and vegetables into a rotten mess. However, there are ways to control this awful pest and one of the most effective but not often considered is growing crops best
Self Sufficient Me is a blog about self-sustainment by growing our own produce (plant/animal), and self-fulfilment by looking after our health (physical/mental) through exercise and slowing life down a little.
