How to Grow Low Cost Organic Veggies

By Helen Sampson

Do you want to start growing your own food? But don't know where to start? Do you want to eat healthier, or at least have access to food?

How to Grow Low Cost Organic Veggies is a guide written to help everyday people grow their own fresh organic food without blowing the budget or spending too much time in the garden. With this book, you can create a garden which will save you time and money, while providing you with healthy, fresh, local food all year round. You can get the food you want in your own backyard.

In this book you will learn how to
•Why growing your own food is better for you, for your family and for our planet
•The benefits of eating organically grown food
•Design and build garden beds to suit your lifestyle and your climate
•Make your own compost and plant supplements from things your already have
•Manage pests and diseases in order to maximise food production
•How to choose what to grow and how to give it what it needs
•What to do with your excess produce to keep yourself fed all year round

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helen Sampson
• Release date: May 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311610119

Helen Sampson

A qualified permaculture designer, avid gardener, accomplished food writer, trainer, educator and blogger, Helen Sampson has been growing her own organic food for around 15 years. Together with her husband she is establishing an organic mixed produce 40 acre farm on the beautiful Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. They are using permaculture ethics and principles to improve the land, respect the earth and supply an abundance of produce to local markets and produce stores.Making a significant change from her previous corporate life, you can read more about the transformation of people and place at www.jaggedcrowfarm.com.au and read more about her gardening and cooking exploits at foodplot.hubpages.com.

Book preview

How to Grow

Low Cost

Organic Veggies

Helen Sampson

© Copyright 2014 Helen Sampson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Author

ISBN: 150045222X

ISBN-13: 978-1500452223

Acknowledgements

Firstly thanks to my husband, Greg, who has allowed me to grow all sorts of food which he has gratefully eaten! I am thankful for his support for me to research and write this book. Without it, this book would not exist.

Thanks too must go to Enid Ninnes who proof read every draft, offered suggestions, and corrected my punctuation, grammar and sentence construction. Without her, this book may not make sense!

Contents

Chapter 1: Why Grow your Own Food?

Chapter 2: Why Organic?

Chapter 3: Planning your Food Garden

Chapter 4: Choosing What and How to Grow

Chapter 5: Healthy Garden = Healthy Plants

Chapter 6: Organic Pest and Disease Management

Chapter 7: Water for your Garden

Chapter 8: Harvesting and Storing Your Produce

Chapter 9: Getting Started

About the Author

Helpful Websites

Attention All Eagle Eyes: I’ve had a number of people proof this book before it was released, but there is a chance you might spot something that was missed. If you find a typo or other obvious error, please let me know. Send it to: [e-mail]

Why Grow Your Own Food?

This book shows you how you can grow plenty of food for yourself and your family, in a low-cost, budget-beating way. You might be saying to yourself, Why would I bother, when I can get what I want from the discount supermarket anytime I want it and it’s not really that expensive? I can get tomatoes for $1 per kilogram in summer. Or you might use time as an excuse – you are busy with your family, working, running a household, trying to keep your relationship on track with your partner. Won’t this just add one more thing to your to do list? What about your health? Is that an excuse too? I can’t do it because I have a bad back or I have arthritis or a weak heart. Perhaps your reason is that you don’t have space or can’t afford expensive soil additives.

This book will show you how you can grow some of your own food, no matter how much or how little space you have and you can do it without expensive soil additives or fertilisers. Growing your own food organically can provide you with healthy, nutritional food much more cheaply than shopping at the supermarket and will provide plenty of other benefits as well.

There are so many reasons why home grown food is superior to that found in a supermarket. Growing your own food can give you so many other things you just can’t get by going to the supermarket. Let’s look at some of the reasons I started to grow my own food and perhaps you will be able to identify with some of these.

Flavour

Firstly I wasn’t satisfied with the flavour of things I bought in the shop. A lot of fruit and vegetable varieties have been bred to be easily transported, to be stored for long periods of time and to look perfect on the supermarket shelves. But the trade-off for these conveniences (for the retailers, sellers and wholesalers) has often been flavour and freshness. When you grow your own, you will discover that food tastes so much better. Tomatoes will zing in your mouth, lettuce will cleanse your pallet and add freshness to any salad, and cucumbers will be cooling and delicious when picked from your own garden. You will be amazed that the food you grow tastes like food you had as a child!

Quality

Organic food has been shown to contain more nutrients, minerals and vitamins than that grown using artificial chemicals and fertilisers. The quality of the food is retained if you grow your own because there is not much time from when you pick it to when you consume it – you can harvest it just when you know it is perfectly ready and enjoy it in its peak condition. You just can’t buy quality like that. At best, if you are visiting a Farmers’ Market the produce has probably been picked the day before and packed on the truck ready to come to market in the morning. I’m a great advocate of Farmers’ Markets, and this is about as fresh as you are going to get it without growing it yourself. For those things you use regularly that you love to eat, you just can’t beat the quality of growing your own. If you are concerned about making sure you eat a healthy diet, then