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Growing your own vegetables in the garden can be a great joy. It gives you something interesting and productive to do, it saves money and it means you know what you are eating rather then buying chemical laden produce from the local supermarket.
I live in Western Australia which, for those who have not been here, is a rather large sand pit with some of the most degraded and nutrient poor soils in the world. Even so I have managed to grow all sorts of vegetables and have a garden that over the course of a year will more than pay for itself.
All my vegetables have been grown in sandy soil. I have done what I can to improve the soil by adding kitchen scraps and some compost but I don't want to fork out hundreds of dollars just to get the soil looking like it does on the TV gardening shows.
I use a limited amount of NPK fertilizer, some soil wetting agent (a real necessity in W.A.) and where possible home made and bio-organic pest control methods. I am not a crazy 100% organic gardener but I don't want to end up eating all sorts of chemicals with my veggies so the use of such things is kept to a minimum.
On the other pages in this site I discuss the exact methods I have used for each type of vegetable that I grow and tell you what results I have had. I am certainly no 'green fingers' and some crops fail badly but overall my garden pays for itself and I get a lot of fun out of growing my own fresh produce.
You don't need a lot of room to get started, an area about 3 metres square will supply enough vegetables to make the effort worth while. As time goes by you will be able to improve your soil for nothing by composting kitchen and garden waste. This also helps reduce the amount of rubbish put into landfill so it is good for the environment too.
My first veggie garden was growing for about 18 months and did very well. We have since moved house and the new garden has now been going for almost 5 years.
I hope this site will help others who are thinking about starting their own veggie patch.
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