How a vegetable garden can save you hundreds a year

I didn't expect to find an oasis of pawpaw trees dripping with fruit, healthy banana trees, vines with native raspberries, lemon trees, clumps of salad greens, lemongrass and other herbs, all along the shady road verge in the built-up, inner-city Sydney suburb of Chippendale.

Much of the credit for such a healthy community garden goes to Michael Mobbs, creator of the remarkable Sustainable House in Chippendale, which has had over 19,000 visitors.

His compact, solar-powered terrace house has become a prototype sustainable house because it saves over 100,000 litres of water a year through recycling. The Mobbs family of four spends less than $300 a year on energy and water. (See sustainablehouse.com.au and Michael's books Sustainable House and recently Sustainable Food.)

But what resources his house saves is nothing compared with those used in food production.

According to Mobbs, the typical diet of the average Australian uses 100,000 litres of water for its production every 10 days.

"Most of our energy and water is consumed in the growing, production and waste of food," he says.

The Chippendale community garden is Mobbs's practical solution to reducing carbon emissions from growing, processing, transporting, selling and disposing of food. The gardens are fed by soil broken down from food waste in free public compost, and worm farms the council has provided for food waste. Mobbs has convinced the local council not to spray the gardens with pesticide, making the food safer.

Community gardens are catching on.

My council has a number of thriving community gardens with a two-year wait for a plot. My bread shop has a sign in the window asking volunteers to care for the bathtub-size pots of fruit trees, herbs and strawberries that now line the local shopping strip.

If community gardening isn't for you, grow your own. I was inspired by a tour of Mobbs's home and local community garden to recently buy a hive of native, stingless bees to help pollinate my fruit trees and vegetable patch and flowering plants.

I am still working out what suits my garden but am growing bananas, figs, oranges, lemons, mandarins, avocadoes, pomegranates, passionfruit, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, sweet potatoes, herbs, chillies, mandarins and a range of vegies. I have enrolled in a free six-week organic gardening course offered by my council.

It isn't hard to grow your own food. If I can, anyone can. Australia's largest gardening club, the Diggers, says that in a domestic front yard any gardener can grow a year's supply of fruit and vegetables to feed a family.

Clive Blazey, founder and executive chairman of the Diggers, estimates that for around $270, or $5.20 a week, you can become self-sufficient in food by buying 10 packets of seeds, 25 strawberry plants, 12 raspberries and five fruit trees. His plan for different climate zones around Australia is available on the website diggers.com.au.

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