Around two years ago I removed a small patch of lawn in our rear yard for the purpose of putting in a vegetable garden. During the time since we've grown all manner of crops, some successful, others not to successful ;(
On the whole it has been a terrific experience, our young children love to help out when it's time to plant the next crop, they also love to water the garden with daddy and of course they love it more than ever as do I, when it's time to harvest, the broad beans as we've just finished doing, the silverbeat as we've been able to for many months now, the broccoli during winter or the tomatoes around Christmas after we just planted them last week.
Being able to pick fresh vegetables from your very own garden when and how you want has been such a rewarding experience for not only me but our entire family, I simply cannot rate it highly enough. In fact I have found it to be an extremely therapeutic ;)
We seldom buy our fruit and vegetables from the two big corporate bullies, we much prefer to buy ours from a local "green grocer".
We have been so impressed with all the positives of having our own "home food garden" we have decided to remove the lawn in the front garden which is terraced & as such obscured from the street, and plant a much larger vegetable garden. Perhaps we'll convert the back garden into a garden for herbs only once the front garden is up & running?
At the same as planting the small garden in the rear yard I also planted a number of citrus trees - orange, lemon and mandarine which have all produced some delicious fruit. Just recently I planted several stone fruit trees in the front garden; apricot, plum, nectarine & green gage as these should provide some much need afternoon shade from the hot Perth sun.
Digging up the lawn wasn't the nicest of tasks but I am super keen to build up several raised garden beds and get some some vegetables in. I'd much prefer to water plants that produce food than a sill lawn that we used to water and then cut???
