Gardening in restricted spaces

• Up to 3.7 million Australian households have been hit by food insecurity this year – many for the first time.
• About 70% of those polled said rising food prices were a reason for their food insecurity and 48% reported cutting back on buying fresh food.
• But done cleverly and cheaply, you can cut your food bills with fresh greens, vegetables, herbs and even by foraging.

Growing food on the cheap

• It’s worth looking first to see if there are community gardens near you.
• These let you grow your own food without having to shell out for garden beds, compost and gardening tools.
• For those hoping to grow closer to home, you could consider “guerrilla gardening”, where you convert your neighbourhood nature strips to food gardens.

• Good quality growing compost will improve harvest yields and save you money longer term.
• Old food-safe containers, plastic pots or even repurposed household items can be an easy way to start growing.
• Make sure to consider potential contaminants if you take this approach, to make sure your soil and the food growing in it is clean.

Does it make financial sense?

• Similarly, it’s not usually worth planting carrots and potatoes as they’re among the cheapest to buy.
• Instead, go for plants that offer you several harvests over many weeks.
• When you’re starting out, it can be easy to get carried away by the thought of exotic vegetables.
• Worse, they’re sold in bunches too big for one meal and can then quietly rot in your fridge.

Grow and swap

Sharing your excess veggies, lemons and eggs is a great way to share the abundance of your crops with like-minded people. You can also do produce swaps. Sharing harvests is as old as agriculture, but what’s new now is the variety of ways we can share it, whether by app, website or regular meeting.

Read more:
Food sharing with a 21st-century twist – and Melbourne's a world leader

For advanced cost-cutting, consider foraging

• Instead, you could make the most of foraging and edible weeds – going out and actively looking for food.
• Avoid foraging near busy roads, for instance, as the soil may have lead or other heavy metals in it.

• The largest edible weeds and foraging Facebook group in Australia has almost 90,000 people.
• Communities like this are an excellent source of knowledge, suggestions and recipes, such as swapping mallow for expensive kale when you make kale chips.
• Whatever you choose, the most important benefit of growing or foraging your own produce are the social connections you can make.

Kate Neale receives research and project funding from various not-for-profit organisations for her work in therapeutic horticulture. She is a member of Therapeutic Horticulture Australia and has previously been a Foodbank Ambassador. She also runs her own consultancy business Digability.