Join the urban gardening revolution and turn your square metre into an urban food bowl

GROWING food in your backyard, balcony or kerbside garden is a popular trend as Sydneysiders become more food savvy.

Adrian Baiada from My Square Metre.

GROWING food in your backyard, balcony or kerbside garden is a popular trend as Sydneysiders become more food savvy, according to urban gardener Adrian Baiada.

Since setting up his own gardening project My Square Metre, he has collaborated with councils in Ryde, Mosman, Marrickville, North Sydney, City of Sydney and Warringah and runs workshops in schools across Sydney.

He said the traditional gardener had changed dramatically with people of all ages growing their own vegies which was vital for the sustainability of our food bowl.

“There are a range of people who come to the different workshops all across Sydney, we get to see a little snapshot of Sydney,” Baiada, who also runs short courses through Home Harvest with landscape gardener Steve Batley, says.

“It used to be the diehard older generation, the Don Burke fans.

“At Home Harvest we do get young families and couples who want to get their little vegie patch going, engage their children in the backyard and eat their own organic produce.

“Everyone is into food at the moment. People are food savvy … and are really starting to investigate where their food comes from.

“When they start to do that, they find these stories about the effects of chemical intensive agriculture and what that does to the food and what that food does to us. They are becoming really health conscious as well.”

He said My Square Metre was about teaching people to create their own edible gardens whether they were using pots, a small patch of soil in the backyard or a shared community or kerbside garden.

You can start by deciding what you wanted to grow, throw in a good mix of edible plants and vegetables and don’t be afraid to plant different species in the same pot.

Baiada says in forests, different plants grew happily next to each other with little assistance and the best way to keep your garden growing was to mimic nature and watch what was happening but try not to interfere too much.

He also recommended starting a worm farm and a compost heap full of garden scraps to turn into a homemade fertiliser.

“The worst thing you can do to any garden is spray chemicals or use synthetic-based fertiliser and potting mix,” he says.

“You have to teach yourself to take a step back and if something gets half eaten and you are going for the spray, ask yourself: ‘Why is this happening in the first place?’ ”

My Square Metre runs workshops on urban organic gardening, worm farming, composting, permaculture and chemical free pest prevention for the public and schools

For details on My Square Metre click here and Home Harvest click here.