Your nutritious, sweet summer grow guide

The garden is a trove of juicy treasures this time of year with an abundance of deliciousness to be grown. There’s something for even the fussiest of eaters and plenty of brag-worthy produce to harvest. Dash down to your local nursery for seed packets and seedlings trays and begin your nutritious, sweet summer gardening adventure today with Life is a Garden!

 

Starting off on the right root

Remember to use prepared compost and potting soil from your nursery as these products have been treated for bugs and weeds. A wide range of fertilisers for edibles is also available to help your produce grow strong roots and yield more yummies. Always check the back of seed packets for sowing information and the labels on seedling trays and pots for planting instructions.

 

Fruit to fall in love with

Nurseries are stocked with a selection of fruit trees, seedlings, and seed packets for you to sow and plant now. Stay hydrated this summer by growing these water-rich, nutrient-dense fruits:

  • Tomatoes – 94% water and high in lycopene, which helps protect cells from damage.
  • Watermelon – 92% water and soaked with nutrients, antioxidants, and amino acids.
  • Strawberry – 92% water, sodium and cholesterol-free, packed with fibre and low on calories.
  • Cantaloupe melon (spanspek) – 90% water and 100% of the recommended daily vitamin C.
  • Papaya – 88% water, aids digestion, helps with weight loss, and is loaded with vitamin A.
Tomatoes
Cantaloupe Melon
Strawberry smoothie
Super-charged veggies to chomp

Sow from seed or grow from seedling! These health-boosting, hunger-busting veggies are ready to go into the ground now:

  • Beetroot - rich in folate (vitamin B9), which helps cells grow and function well.
  • Capsicum - loads of vitamin C that’s important for the absorption of iron in the body.
  • Leeks - low in calories and high in nutrients such as magnesium and vitamins A, C, and K.

Vertical Gardening

Attention all small-space, bedless green fingers! Here’s your chance to grow vegetables, herbs, flowers, and foliage without a garden. Take your passion to the walls and grow your heart out with these nifty vertical gardening ideas. Bring your patio to life, suspend your edibles, dare to go soil-less, and have some fun with hanging baskets.

 

Geometric Greenery

A bare patio or balcony wall is prime location to begin your first vertical gardening project. You’ll need a drill and screws to secure pots against the wall in your desired shape/layout. Try an elegant symmetrical grid style, leaving a pot-width space between each container (4 pots across by 4 pots down is a good start). You can also experiment with circle pot arrangements, horizontal lines, or a diagonal pattern with cascading creepers in the top pots.

Plant picks: 'Compact Royal Jewels' Lobelia for a flowering spiller, English Ivy for dramatic trails of leaves, and 'Versa Green Halo' Coleus for an exotic-looking mound.

Vertical Garden Coleus
Soil-less Hydroponics

Dare to be different with an intriguing water-based, soil-less garden. Hydroponic planting gives you complete control of the environment, minimises pests, boosts plant growth, saves water, eliminates weeds, AND gives you eye-catching, living décor. There are a variety of hydroponic growing kits available, not only for vertical growing. Consult your garden centre advisor for different installation options and nutrient formulas.

Plant picks: Almost all herbs, leafy veggies such as celery and lettuce, fruits such as Key limes and avocados, and indoor ornamentals such as Philodendron, Peace Lily, Chinese Evergreen, and Spider Plant.

 

Hanging Around

Hanging baskets are ideal space-savers that add texture and life to baren corners, on the patio or indoors. Use a chain to hang containers from the roof (climbing plants will play up the chain and spill over the edges), or try half baskets attached to the wall with an added trellis behind them for trailing plants.

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