PepperGreen Farm's Sustainable Home Demonstration Garden

A sustainable food growing garden can be an important component of a sustainable lifestyle - it is estimated that almost one third of the average household’s greenhouse gas emissions come from their food supply.

Agriculture, in particular vegetable growing, is a huge user of toxic chemicals and fossil fuels whereas an edible home garden can be created without synthetic chemicals and with a minimum of fossil fuels.

Huge amounts of greenhouse gasses are also created in the transportation and packaging of our food. Food from a home garden requires no transportation or packaging to reach the consumer – it can come straight from the garden to the kitchen (or in many cases straight from the garden to the mouth!).

A home vegetable garden also reduces food waste. Waste is produced throughout the whole food supply chain: on-farm waste; transport and storage waste; wholesale and retail waste; household waste. In the home garden situation this waste is vastly reduced or eliminated – parts of plants that are not eaten (corn stalks, outer leaves of lettuce etc) can be used for mulch, worms, chooks or compost; food can be harvested as needed so does not have the tendency to lie forgotten in the fridge as bought produce does; any uneaten leftovers can be recycled back into the system.

A home vegetable garden provides produce for far less water than the equivalent produce in a standard agricultural system. Since seventy-five percent of Victoria’s water use is in agriculture, growing vegetables in a home garden situation reduces overall water usage.

Besides the environmental benefits, there are further benefits of growing fresh produce at home including:

-          fresher, tastier produce

-          financial savings

-          access to unusual species and varieties that are unavailable commercially

-          health benefits (through greater consumption of fresh food; through increased exercise opportunities; and the established mental health benefits of gardening)

-          children (and adults!) can see and understand how food is produced

Tank Water Garden

Our new Tank Water Garden is now well underway. Our aim is to create the sort of garden that would fit into a small Bendigo yard and water it entirely from rain and tank water.  Whilst its main focus is to grow vegetables and some fruit for a family to enjoy, because it is a backyard style garden it also needs to be a pleasure to relax in. Come down to PepperGeen Farm and be inspired!

In the last month we have cleared the site of weeds, planted fruit trees to be trained against the fence and started the construction of garden beds and a small pond.

Wicking beds

We have also created  some ‘wicking beds’ in reused apple crates - wicking beds are a fantastic way to grow vegetables with minimal use of water.

Instead of receiving water from a hose or watering-can at the soil surface, water in a wicking bed is held in a reservoir at the base of the bed. The water wicks up through the soil to the roots of the plants. Because the surface of the bed is not watered, there is far less evaporation than in a standard garden bed. It also means that the bed needs watering less often.

The water is applied to the beds via the pipes that stick up above the soil level; these are connected to a slotted pipe that and runs along the base of the beds. The water level can be checked by looking down the pipe so it is easy to see whether more water is yet required. Water can be put into the pipes with a hose or a bucket – a good way to utilise water collected with a bucket in the shower.

CUT-AWAY DIAGRAM OF WICKING BED

Although these wicking beds are built in a recycled apple creates, there are many other ways to make them: converting existing raised garden beds, using old bath tubs, or digging wicking beds into the ground are all possibilities.  We will be creating some of these in other Sustainable Garden areas at PepperGreen Farm.