Episode:#11 11/11/06
Presenter: Sue McDougall

Sue is passionate about growing her own fruit and herbs in her own backyard and in recent year?s people are realizing just how easy it is and the benefits of growing and eating chemical free, full of flavour produce.

Citrus trees like Valencia Orange (Citrus sp. ?Velencia?) love our climate and are probably one of the easiest fruit trees to grow. They have dark, glossy green foliage and they don?t take up much room on the garden. They also have beautifully perfumed flowers in spring and within a couple of years you will be enjoying lots of sweet, juicy fruit.

If you love the thought of growing fruit trees in your backyard but haven?t got very much space you might like to try an espalier trellis as this idea maximises the number of trees in a small area. It also makes picking the fruit really easy.

Another must have for the backyard is an avocado tree (Persea sp. ?Fuerte?), not one but two. This will ensure cross pollination and guarantee you with hundreds of fruit. You need to pick them green and take them inside as that is how they ripen and it stops the birds getting to them.

If you only have a small area then fresh herbs add so much flavour to home cooking and they are easy to grow in your own backyard. Herbs such as rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) are native to the Mediterranean and can cope with drought conditions, in fact as much neglect that you can throw at them, but other varieties of herbs such as parsley (Petroselinum crispum) need a nutrient rich fertile soil to grow successfully. The idea is to get them to put on as much gorgeous growth as possible, because the better these leaves are the better flavour you will have.

To start, dig Moisture Worx Plus into the soil at a rate of 2.5kg per m2. This is about an ice-cream container full. The fine product is a soil improver for existing and new gardens. It contains beneficial bacteria and a nutrient to get microscopic creatures working for you in your soil. Nutrients are then converted into a form that the plants can use. Add a soil improver and dig it in.

Without getting too technical plants are healthier and they have good disease resistance. Any fertiliser is held in the soil and then released when plants need it, reducing leaching in sandy soils. The proof is in the pudding as the herbs will be full of flavour, taste better and require less water to grow.

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