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A mystery public vegetable garden has just appeared in our local park, Edinburgh Gardens.

The timber planter boxes seem to be made from recycled pallets. What a great idea!

Inside the veggie box are a mixture of tomatoes, spinach, beetroot, corn, lettuce and even strawberries. They’re all looking mighty healthy. It’s a great example of how a vegetable patch can still flourish in an asphalt and dirt environment.

Sadly, it’s only a matter of time before the City of Yarra removes the guerilla planter boxes. The council requires that such projects go through the usual administrative channels to determine a suitable location in the public space.

Well, as a City of Yarra ratepayer, I’m more than happy to have this left for the community to enjoy.   North Fitzroy is littered with Victorian worker’s cottages, and most have very limited space to create a working veggie garden.

Perhaps this might inspire council to create a community space for projects just like these – and then they could be enjoyed by all the local residents.

Such public gardens have already been successful at CERES environmental park and  the Collingwood Children’s farm – but we could always do with more.

And, by the way, if you’re looking to create your own veggie garden at home, Sustainable Gardening Australia have a great handbook.

Written by Andrew Talati

It’s great to see parents encouraging their children to develop healthy eating habits by growing their own fruit and vegetables.

While at a friends dinner party, we started talking about nutrition and the current crisis confronting our youngest generation with increased rates of childhood obesity and diabetes. At their local primary school, one of the parents created a blog that documented the transformation of their inner suburban backyard into a thriving vegetable patch.

The great thing about creating this awareness for children from a young age is not the quality time spent with their children but the association and connection between freshly grown produce through to the preparation and consumption of this yummy food.

Oscars Little garden

Oscar’s little garden shows no matter how small your backyard there is ample opportunities to help educate your kids in growing their own fruit and vegetables. With Oscars little garden, he could see the development of the vegetables; carrots, spinach, garlic and beetroot from a tiny seed to sprouting life.

Like any habit in life, the more senses that are touched and stimulated during a particular process leads to greater engagement and the creation of neurological pathways that are set for life. Just as we can develop poor eating habits from an early age we can also create lifelong healthy eating patterns that shape the way we think and appreciate food.

With Oscar, he was able to experience the many senses involved in the growing and harvesting of his fruit and vegetables from the feeling of the dirt in his hands, planting the seeds, the smell of the garden, the emotion felt of seeing the living plant growing, through to the taste and sight of the harvest.

A big advocate and pioneer in moving this concept to the school yard is Stephanie Alexander who has helped 180 schools with educating children about growing their own vegetables which has had wonderful results.

While modern life may be running at a crazy pace, this is great opportunity to take an active role in helping the children develop healthy eating habits for life.

While we focus on maintaining our physical health through exercise and nutrition, we sometimes forget to maintain our mental health.

According to a recent government report entitled “Australia’s health 2010“, 20% of Australians suffer from some form of mental disorder every year. More disturbing is that this statistic increases to 25% for those aged 16 to 24 years old.

Anxiety based disorders such as panic disorders, agoraphobia and social phobias account for 72% of this number, with affective disorders like depression and bi-polar accounting for 31%.

These numbers are based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics’s 2007 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (SMHWB). Even more alarming was the discovery that 7,286,600 Australians, or 45% of the population, will suffer from a mental disorder during their lifetime

So what can we do to improve our mental health?

1. Change your negative thoughts
We need to identify those negative notions swirling around our mind and replace them with positive thoughts.

2. Get a good nights sleep
Achieving 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep will go a long way to improving how you feel.

3. Healthy eating
A diet of fresh fruit, vegetables and less processed food will enrich your body with good nutrients.
This leads to improved alertness, increased energy and general wellbeing.

4. Maintaining quality relationships with friends and family.
As a society we are becoming more isolated from the world around us. Having good friends and family members to talk things through is very therapeutic. Spending quality time with those you care about can be as simple as catching up for coffee or going for a walk.

5. Keep exercising
Regular exercise helps reduce muscular tension and improve the flow of oxygen, chemicals and nutrients through the body.

For further information contact your local GP or Beyond Blue
www.beyondblue.org.au

A restaurant near Seymour is growing its own vegetables and herbs and raising chickens for the eggs. The great thing about growing your own is that not only is it good for the environment and making tasty dishes, but it actually saves you money.

As vegetables continue to increase in price, growing your own is the ultimate way of saving some dollars while getting organic produce fresh from the garden. The flavours and nutrients are at their highest levels and the taste is quite overwhelming when compared to supermarkets vegies that have been sitting in a cool room or spending time being transported by truck.

Bruce and Lindy at the Wool Shed Cafe have a plentiful supply of vegetables, depending on what’s in season. During summer for example, they have fresh capsicums, tomatoes, cucumbers and beans and the excess is preserved in their delicious chutneys and pickles.

The great thing about Bruce and Lindy’s garden is their use of permaculture. Food scraps are fed to the chickens or mulched for reuse in the garden, while the chicken poo makes fantastic manure.
The other part of the equation is the gardening itself – its good exercise! Digging, planting, tilling the soil, weeding, composting are all great activities that require you to expend energy.
So, if you have the space, even a small pot for some herbs, start to grow your own you can create your own vegetable patch with only one square metre of space.

Even in the movies it’s becoming hip to become self sufficient, the restaurant owner in “The kids are all right” have their own vegetable patch – see it and be inspired!

Even in the movies it’s becoming hip to become self sufficient with the restaurant owner having their own vegetable patch in “The kids are all right”

While staying with friends recently, I was treated to some good old-fashioned homegrown veggies. Nothing quite beats the freshness, taste and goodness of vegetables grown in your own backyard.

While this backyard was much larger than your average size house block, it shows what is possible without using chemicals. Rain water irrigation and food scrap mulching contributes to these super healthy spinach, beetroot and silverbeets.
And the scent of fresh vegetables can’t be beaten, as you walk through the garden you experience natures bouquet, something that is missing from the supermarket fruit and vegetable department.

With the summer crop of corn, broccoli and tomatoes just finishing, my friends were kept busy preserving any excess vegetables.

It harks back to our grandparent’s era when they enjoyed a less hectic lifestyle and had more time to spend gardening, which apart from producing great food also has other benefits such as stress relief, physical exercise, leaving a smaller carbon imprint and self sufficiency.

There is a sense of immense satisfaction knowing that the food on the table is produced from your very own garden plus it taste super yummy. This spinach, parsley and parmesan cheese was easy to prepare, very healthy and best of all it’s from the garden.

Feeling inspired? If you need some help building your own vegetable garden, Sustainable Gardening Australia have some great step by step instructions on getting started.