Water celery is a little-known perennial edible that grows in most climates & makes a fantastic addition to any food garden. All parts of this plant can be eaten, and the mild taste sits somewhere between parsley and celery. It’s easy to grow, and will survive both very hot summers and hard frosts. Despite this,
Beets, beetroot, whatever you want to call them, when you have too many…. well, you have too many. Yet with the price of food these days, none of us wants to be wasting anything home-grown, especially a seasonal crop like beetroot. Our self-sufficiency journey isn’t just about growing the food; we need to know how
To prune, or not to prune….that is the question! I’m talking about tomato plants, of course, and in this article I’m going to explain why sometimes you should prune tomatoes, and sometimes you shouldn’t. Types of Tomato Plant There are several things I look for whenever I’m thinking of pruning tomato plants, and the first
Do you love eating garlic, but have trouble growing it in your warm climate? Then you might find elephant garlic (allium ampeloprasum) a fantastic substitute. This hardy allium does well in the tropics & subtropics where the winters are rarely cold enough to grow a good garlic crop. Elephant garlic has huge cloves with a
Meet celtuce- one of the most versatile, tasty, useful, yet least-known vegetables. Celtuce (lactuca sativa var. asparagina) is a form of lettuce which is effectively dual-purpose; the leaves can be eaten as lettuce, and the thick stem as a type of celery. This unusual edible will grow in a variety of climates, suffers minimal pest
Are you worried about the rising cost of food? Or even worse, a food crisis? We’ve seen unprecedented pressure on our food supply these past couple of years- things like extreme weather events, a shortage of fertiliser, logistical delays, rising energy prices and even a lack of fruit & veggie pickers are affecting us like
The Kratky growing system is essentially a small, portable hydroponic system for growing veggies that is quick & easy to set up at home. A type of passive or static deep water culture that works without pumps or any electricity, it was named after Bernard Kratky, a researcher from the University of Hawaii, who first
Grocery prices have risen sharply in 2022 due to inflation, and this upwards price trend doesn’t look to be stopping any time soon. Compounded by shortages due to the pandemic and localised extreme weather events, fresh produce prices in particular are higher than ever. We’ve all seen the $12 lettuces headline, but luckily as gardeners
Ginger is one of the worlds most useful and beneficial foods. Fragrant, tasty, and with a multitude of health-promoting qualities, it’s no wonder that ginger is expensive to buy. But it’s crazy to pay supermarket prices when you can grow your own organic ginger for so much less. I’ve been growing ginger successfully for many
Are your veggies shrivelling up and dying before they reach full size? Are you getting flowers but no fruit? Then you might be suffering from a lack of pollination. But there’s no need to give up on growing vegetables- you can learn to pollinate them yourself. What is Pollination? Pollination means the transfer of pollen
‘As easy as shelling peas’- well that’s how the saying goes- but is growing snow peas really that easy? Well yes, it can be easy, if you follow my 5 top tips on how to grow a ton of snow peas! Snow peas are usually grown to eat whole, and they’re remarkably similar to sugar
Cauliflower is amazingly versatile. You can cook, roast, bake, steam, puree and make soup out of it. You can even use it as a substitute for rice. But did you know you can also use cauliflower in sweet dishes, and as a substitute for oats? Wait, what?! Cauliflower in something sweet? You must be crazy.
I don’t think there’s a vegetable gardener in the world that doesn’t love tomatoes- and rightly so! They are one of the most tasty, versatile and all-round fabulous food plants to grow. With the main growing season coming up here in the subtropics and the northern hemisphere, it’s time to think about what to sow.
I love to grow onions at home. Even though they’re cheap to buy, there is just something special about a freshly harvested, crisp onion. They are so versatile in the kitchen, being useful in everything from sauces, curries, soups to pickles and ferments. I grow them without any chemicals at all so they’re organic, which
There’s nothing better than biting into a fresh, home-grown organic carrot. They’re sweet, juicy, crunchy, and incredibly healthy! A basic vegetable the world over, carrots are versatile in the kitchen. They can be a base for soups, stews and juices, and make a tasty addition to salads and stir-fries. Despite being well-known and well-loved, carrots
Sweet potatoes are one of the easiest and most handy vegetables to have in your garden. They’re mostly grown for the delicious & nutritious tubers, but the leaves can be eaten too. Sweet potato leaves are high in fibre, rich in numerous vitamins, and are used as a spinach in many parts of the world.
There are so many interesting varieties of vegetables to tempt us- many more than we have garden space for. It can be really hard to narrow it down, especially when you’re a beginner gardener. This is my top ten list of vegetables you should always grow. I have chosen these 10 veggies based on a
Burying your vegetable scraps from the kitchen straight into the garden is one of the easiest ways to recycle organic waste. It’s an old method that is tried and true; many of us had grandparents who buried their vegetable scraps. Popular around 40 years ago, it is now coming back into fashion as we continue
Vegetable gardening is so much fun and has such great rewards for the body and soul. There’s nothing better than connecting with nature, getting some exercise, then reaping the benefit of fresh organic veggies on your plate every day. We’re living in increasingly difficult times and uncertainty is all around. Thousands of us are spending
This is the fourth part in a series of articles on my self-built geodesic dome greenhouse. If you need to catch up, here is part 3. It’s All About the Possums! As if my problems with light and powdery mildew weren’t enough, I now had pest damage to contend with. Will it ever end?! The
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.
