We’re very excited about our next Nutrition Group in March – Learn to Grow Your Own Produce Workshop! This will be held on Wed 4 March, 7pm. We’ll meet at the gym to start the workshop, and then we’ll head down the road to take a tour of one of our veggie-growing guest’s backyard garden.

We have a number of passionate and successful home-growers who are going to share their secrets on how to set up a vegetable garden and keep it flourishing. Whether you’re new (or a complete virgin!) to growing your own food, or a seasoned gardener, you’ll no doubt learn something new during the night.

During the night you’ll learn:

  • How to set up an easy-to-maintain, back-friendly garden
  • How to start food from seeds
  • How to plant and look after your seedlings
  • How to make the most of small backyards
  • Organic composting and pest control
  • How to create your own hydroponics system
  • The easiest, most prosperous foods to grow in Tassie
  • What to plant during which season

Come along and be inspired to plant your own food, and share your own experiences. As always, all are welcome to this FREE community workshop – gym members and non-members alike.

While the idea of growing your own food may seem daunting, it really is quite easy once you set up your garden and learn a few tricks of the trade. There are SOOOO many benefits of growing your own food, from cost-effectiveness, to knowing your veggies haven’t been sprayed with dozens of chemicals, to eating FRESH and TASTY food packed with nutrients, to having a closer connection to your food and the earth around you. Just try it, and you’ll fall in love!

 

RESOURCES

Below are a list of resources to help you succeed with growing your own produce. You don’t ‘have to’ read/watch these before the workshop, but rather use them as a guide to help you set up and look after your own garden.

– A Guide to Sowing Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs in Tasmania (thanks Mel D and Caleb P for the reference)

– Video series by Paul Check on food, soil and nutrition. Nutrition: The Dirt Facts (thanks Mel D and Caleb P for the reference)

– Video on gardening and hydroponics (thanks Chris W for the reference)

– “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”  by Barbara Kingsolver – a beautifully written non-fiction book about a city-family’s move to the country to grow their own produce. This book will inspire you to get-a-gardening! (Filipa B’s fav read)

We also asked Jo Smith from Primal Living Tasmania for some of her favourite gardening resources. She has quite a few!! Her avid reading and researching has certainly paid off – Jo moved from Sydney to Bruny Island, Tasmania to live a more Primal life. When she first moved there she had NO idea how to garden. The owner of her property said to her, “can you read?” To which she answered yes. “You will be fine!” Jo now grows enough produce to feed herself and her partner, as well as provide food for the local café and to sell to the islanders. Go Jo! Here’s her list:

– Grow a sustainable diet – Cindy COnnor

– A year round gardening – Peter Cundall

– The Lazy Gardener – Don Burke

– Composting guide – Penguin Books

– The Permaculture Home Garden – Linda Woodrow

– Garden Fresh – Yates

– Growing Vegetables South Of Australia – Steve Solomon

– Organic – Don Burke

– Practical Self Sufficiancy – Dick and James Strawbridge

– Sustainable FOod – Michael Hobbs

– The Sustainable Table – Sustainable Table

– 1 Minute Gardener – The Little Veg Patch Co – they have a few books

– Joel Salatin books are awesome and a must read for everyone

– Michael Pollan – now not gardening but all about food ethics and sustainability

– Milkwood permaculture – amazing resources – training

– Food matters for videos to watch, also milkwood