How I Grow
Gardening chats.
How I Grow
Growing in a Tiny Garden | A Chat with Breanna
An interview Breanna from @tiny.garden.growing
Instagram: @tiny.garden.growing
BIO: I am a passionate self taught gardener, proving that a tiny garden CAN be productive. I aim to inspire people to want to eat healthier homegrown food, garden sustainably and create habitat for native critters - irrespective of garden size!
Location: Melbourne's outer South East
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More about this episode:
Do you believe a lush garden is out of reach for city dwellers? Let Melbourne's own Breanna from Tiny Garden Growing prove you wrong! On our latest episode, she takes us through her surprising journey, transforming a tiny urban space into a veritable cornucopia. Discover how creativity and a little bit of soil can work wonders, and how you, too, can yield a bountiful harvest from even the smallest of balconies or backyards. From balancing soil composition for pots to selecting the right fruit trees for cooler climates, Brianna's expertise will leave you eager to green your space, no matter the size.
We chat about how involving children in the process not only educates them on the origins of their food but instills a sense of environmental stewardship. Hear heartwarming anecdotes of youngsters engaging with nature and learn why it's critical to share this knowledge with the next generation. Not only will you be nurturing plants, but you'll also be fostering a greener future with every seed sown.
'How I Grow' is produced by The Seed Collection Pty Ltd.
Find out more about us here: www.theseedcollection.com.au
You're listening to how I Grow with the Seed Collection. My name is Gemma and today I'll be speaking with Brianna from Tiny Garden Growing on Instagram. Brianna is a small space gardener from Melbourne which has a cool climate. She's a passionate, self-taught gardener, proving that a tiny garden can be productive. Brianna aims to inspire people to want to eat healthier, homegrown food, garden sustainably and create habitat for native critters, irrespective of their garden size. Hi, brianna, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
Speaker 2:Hi, gemma, I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:My pleasure, I'm really keen to learn more about how you grow and I am always keen to share Fantastic. So, understanding that you're a small space gardener. To help our listeners get a better idea of the garden that you're working with, could you please tell us how big the land is where you're growing and paint a bit of a picture of what it looks?
Speaker 2:like yeah, no worries. So I am in southeast Melbourne, so it's one of the fastest growing corridors in Victoria at the moment. So there are houses popping up everywhere and it's very much a let's fit as many houses in a small space as possible. To give you an idea of the land I'm working with, so it's about 400 square metres in total, but most of that is house, obviously. So little front yard, about a meter and a half wide strip between the fence and the house down the side and then a little bit of a backyard. So it's a very typical kind of those flat back houses that are being built everywhere at the moment. So, yeah, very, very squishy, not a lot of working space, I see.
Speaker 1:And so how are you growing all of your fruits and vegetables? Are they in planter boxes?
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, yeah. So I suppose when we first built our house I wasn't a gardener. I never had a garden before. It's kind of evolved as time has gone on. So when we first did the backyard and the front yard, we did it ourselves. We didn't go with a landscape package. So my brother's a chippy, so he built a decking. We thought, yeah, cool, new house, new decking, that sounds fun. That's about as far as it went, with a bit of lawn.
Speaker 2:And then from there COVID happened. I had my second child, so maternity leave all kind of mixed into one, so a lot of time at home, so that kind of eventuated into getting into the garden, which then I had to make the space that we had work. So, given that the sunniest point in my garden is actually decking now, I had to be creative and think well, how can I grow veggies there? And that's where a lot of my stuff is in pots and in raised veggie boxes which I upcycle from various things shipping crates and boxes and whatnot. But yeah, so I have one in-ground garden that is a pollinator garden and for perennial flowers, and all of my produce, fruit and veg, are all in either pots or raised veggie boxes.
Speaker 1:Ah, fantastic. So how much produce or how many different plants have you managed to fit into that space? Do?
Speaker 2:you have a rough idea. I've never actually counted. I'd be there all day, I reckon Well, look, I've got three, one by one metre crates. Yeah, there's likeone meter crates. You know those like timber shipping crates. So I've upcycled three of those. They're sitting on my decking and they're all packed with veggies and herbs pretty much all year round. Then I've got I think I've got. What have I got? I've got a potted lemon, a potted mandarin, a potted feijoa, I've got four potted apples. So I reckon I've got seven or eight potted fruit trees. I've got a couple of plums, actually, and a peach. So lots of fruit trees and yeah, I don't even think I could count, to be honest. But a lot, a lot.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant. Feijoa is one of the less common fruit trees. Could you explain for our listeners what that is and what that fruit is like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's actually an amazing one for kids. If you've got little people, it's super, super sweet. My boys love it. It's like a really long oval kind of shape. It'd be probably the size I don't't know maybe probably similar size to the length of an orange, I reckon, but more, yeah, oval than round, and they are super sweet, like lolly sweet, and my boys just devour them and they grow really well in pots. So anything that grows well in pots is a win for my little garden lovely, and so you can eat them just fresh off the tree yes, yep, that's what my boys do.
Speaker 2:They don't last very long.
Speaker 1:Do you have any tips for growing the feijoas?
Speaker 2:Anything in particular you've found helpful in their soil Well in terms of the feijoas specifically, I actually find that it thrives the same way as I do all my other fruit trees. Citrus are a little bit different, but my apples, my stone fruit and my feijoa all have the same soil ratios. So when I'm planting them fresh out into a new pot I'll use top quality premium potting mix, because that's just optimal for drainage. But for fruit trees the potting mix on its own just doesn't have enough oomph and nutrients in it. So then I usually do a 50-50 ratio with compost, whether it's my own made compost I've got a couple of small compost bins here but being such a small space and a lot of plants, I do have to buy some compost as well.
Speaker 2:So whether I've got mine on hand or a bag, I'll do a 50-50 mix. I then mulch it with sugar cane mulch, because obviously pots dry out a lot easier than in the ground and you don't want the soil to go anaerobic and put stress on the trees. So mulch 50-50, high potting mix and compost and then a liquid feed of seaweed and fish emulsion throughout their growing season, and I find that that works for all my potted fruit.
Speaker 1:Oh, fantastic and that's really great that we can have something quite unique as well and care for it in the same ways as the things we're a little more used to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's a bit of fun to grow something different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, yeah, and exciting for the kids, like you say. Yeah, absolutely so. You mentioned having compost systems in your small garden as well. What kind of composting system are you using, brianna?
Speaker 2:Yep. So I've got two, just the regular drums that sit on the ground. I've got them partially dug into the ground so to prevent rodents, rats and mice digging in. But we don't obviously get too much of that here. There's not a lot of your big pests here, it's just too much of a concrete jungle. So we've buried them partially in and I've got two of them on the go. But I also have a little worm farm, which are amazing for little spaces. I probably get more, to be honest, out of my worm farm than I do my compost bins, and they're even easier. So I always recommend, if people are interested in reusing their scraps or living slightly more sustainably than to opt for a worm farm. They're super easy.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. And how does the worm farm operate? Just for those who might not have a good understanding of these, could you explain that for us? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So these are a little box that just stand off the ground. Mine have little legs. You can get them of various sizes. I just have a really small one. It's probably, I reckon, 30 by 30 centimetres and it's a two-levelled system.
Speaker 2:So how it works is that you buy the kit that usually comes with the worm bedding and the trays that you need. Then you can actually go and buy composting worms. You can just get them from local hardwares and garden suppliers usually have them. So you basically you put the bedding in, add your worms and then over time slowly add scraps. So that's any of your green garden wastes essentially. So we put in peels and cores and things and slowly increase it over time.
Speaker 2:What's really awesome about composting worms in the worm farm is the more you add to the worm farm, the more that they multiply. They kind of breed and adapt to how much food is in there. So the more you feed it, the more worms that appear and then the quicker the food is demolished. So we're getting to a point now where I can put a very big full bowl of scraps in weekly and they're pretty much gone the next week. I open it up to top it up and then from that, not only do you get the worm castings, which is essentially a worm poo, which is a fantastic, organic, really rich fertilizer that you can put straight in your garden.
Speaker 2:But you also get a worm tea, which is kind of like the runoff and the worm wee, I guess, the extract that runs through the system constantly and it has a little tray underneath it that it drips into and that's an instant liquid fertilizer that you can put on your garden as well, and I'm constantly harvesting those two from there and adding to my garden. So I really love that system. It's really easy. You're not having to worry about balancing greens and browns and things that I know people find difficult with a compost system. It's just put the worm farm somewhere out of the sun so that they don't fry. I've actually just got mine sitting in a little corner of the decking so it's not even out in the garden.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, it sounds really wonderful. And yeah, you've got a lot of reward for little effort with those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and the kids love it too, like if you've got kids. I'm all for educating my kids, and my two-year-old loves checking out the worms. Mommy, the worms, the worms. Can we see the worms whenever?
Speaker 1:we go outside. Oh, that's sweet. Do the kids help in the garden at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do, they do. My oldest is 10, so he's kind of at that age where you know when he's in the right mood. But the two-year-old he loves it. He's constantly outside with me and he's now learnt when a fruit is ripe. So it was difficult at the start. He just saw some kind of fruit and would pull it off, whether it was a green strawberry or a green tomato. So he's learnt now you know oh, red, red, I can pick it, I can eat it, which is really cute, yeah, and he loves to get his hands dirty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's lovely. I think there's a lot we can learn from watching children interact with the outdoors and nature.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And as a primary school teacher, I'm surprised all the time with the amount of kids that tell me they've never seen you know what a tomato grows off or how does a potato grow. It's crazy to think that these kids have never seen it and just have no idea. So that kind of was an eye opener that you know we need to educate our little people, starting with our own kids at home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very much so. Could I ask you, brianna, to explain why you think it's so important that we do teach the young generation now children and the children around us about where our food comes from and how to garden?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's so many factors. I suppose the first one is the health behind it, the health for us as a human race, the fact that so much of our food is genetically modified or covered in chemicals and pesticides and things. It's better for health, I guess, for us to be having really organic, fresh food that hasn't been sitting in storage for months and covered with goodness knows what, and teaching kids that. But also, you know, we lose so many heirloom varieties of vegetables. If you go to Coles or Woolies or any supermarket, really you see the same two varieties of broccoli, the same one type of green bean, where growing my own food and looking into seeds and growing from seed in particular opens up a whole world of all these different varieties and different colours and versions of vegetables and fruits that you just had no idea existed. And if people aren't growing their own food, then those heirloom varieties will disappear and we lose those.
Speaker 2:I think for the future, to keep all of these varieties going and have all of these fruits and veggies at our fingertips is really important as well. But then also the impact on the environment too. We're kind of in that time where a lot of different industries and people are looking to try and make a greener world and protect the environment, and I think growing your own food is a massive help in that regard. If you grow organically in your own garden, you're limiting things like transport and the use of plastic in people packaging these fruits and vegetables. So you don't think about the kind of the bigger impact If you just decide I'm only going to grow my own tomatoes. Well, if you think about how many times you buy tomatoes over summer and how many plastic containers that is consuming into your household, if you eradicate that plastic use over one summer, like that's huge. So even the smallest thing can have a really big impact. If kids start to see these things and normalise this view from a young age, I think that'll have a huge impact later on.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. I think yeah, indeed, and yeah, like you say, just one thing at a time, it can make a difference. It might seem small, but in the scheme of things, that's how it all starts and that's what we need to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, because I can say really overwhelming and I know it was for me when I first jumped onto Instagram and you see all of these wonderful people, you know, living almost completely off the land and doing the whole homesteading thing, which obviously you can aspire to do, but it can be overwhelming. To start with, you had the whole idea of growing your own food and then having the compost system and then baking your own bread and then, you know, using reusable everything. It's just a lot at once. So I think people just need to start small, you know, start with your little space, start with one pot, start with one worm farm and then go from there.
Speaker 1:So what would you say to people, brianna, who say, oh, I can't grow my own food, I only have, you know, a very small block, or I only have a decking area? What would you say to those people to make them perhaps reconsider?
Speaker 2:The first thing is to go and have a look at my Instagram page, because I think it's proof that space is just not a limitation and I 100% was in that boat. I grew up up in the Dandenongs, so my parents have property up there. That's what I knew lots and lots of space. So then when me and my husband bought our first home and obviously you know first home buyers, you buy and just knew those little pop-up houses it was a bit of a shock. And just knew those little pop-up houses, it was a bit of a shock.
Speaker 2:And both my mother and I my mother's a gardener too we were like, oh, I can't fit that, I can't have what you've got at your house, so there's no way I could grow that. But I'm also very stubborn and, like I said, through lockdown and maternity leave, sitting around twiddling my thumbs, I decided no, I want to grow food and I'm going to make it happen. And then, yeah, so you can, absolutely. You have to be creative, yes, and you have to think outside the square and you have to break gardening rules. That's kind of the two biggest things that I preach a lot on my page is that if you want to grow in a small space. You have to be willing to think creative and you have to break the rules, because you know, traditional growing of fruit and veg is like okay, well, you need three metres by two metres to grow six broccolis? Well, not necessarily. I grow six broccolis in my one-by-metre garden bed. So you've got to be willing to, yeah, break those rules and you can absolutely do it, 100% Excellent.
Speaker 1:And speaking of breaking those rules, I have seen on your Instagram page that you have even managed to grow watermelon and other melons in this space. Are there any secrets to this and how have you done that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Another key to growing in a small space is remembering that while your horizontal space might be limited, vertically it is not. The sky is literally the limit. So for things that vine. So I know a lot of people, and me included.
Speaker 2:I was so in this boat at the start of my gardening journey. I would see people growing watermelons and pumpkins Pumpkins is another one that you think you know huge plants with huge fruit, and they sprawl everywhere and they take up so much space. Well, yes, they can, but again, if you're creative and a bit clever with how you do it, all of these things can actually be grown vertically. So so many of my things, as much as I possibly can, I grow up, whether that's up over archways, up trellises, and I just make really, you know, cheap, movable ones with garden stakes, garden pickets and dog fencing or mesh. I use cheap, $20 flimsy archways from hardware stores that I just reinforce with garden stakes or wire for the plants to climb up. But yeah, my watermelons grow super happily up and over archways. So do my pumpkins.
Speaker 2:And another trick too, especially with things like watermelons and pumpkins, is choosing your variety. So, like I said before, there's a whole world of varieties that you won't have ever seen before in your green grocers or your supermarkets. The watermelon variety that I tend to grow is called Sugar Baby, and it's a much, much smaller variety. The watermelons are probably I don't know comparative to they'd be smaller than a netball. It's the only one out there that does sport. They're really tiny watermelons, which means, naturally, the vines are smaller and more compact too.
Speaker 2:So, choosing varieties like that. There's so many miniature pumpkin varieties out there too. I grew one this season called the golden nugget pumpkin, which I found through another garden page on Instagram, and the growth habit of this particular pumpkin is more like a zucchini. So, rather than being a super long vine with massive leaves, the leaves are smaller than that of a zucchini and the length of the vine was probably actually smaller than some of my zucchinis, so it was super compact and I got these really cute little pumpkins. I reckon I got four to five off each vine and it took up barely any space. So, be creative, grow vertically and, yeah, look into all of those different variety types and find ones that are more, smaller and more compact.
Speaker 1:That's some excellent advice. And pumpkins, they can store for quite a long time too, so they are a very practical thing for people to grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah, If you you know, wait till the plant fully dies back, harvest them off with plenty of the stem still attached so that you don't get any nasties growing in there. They can store for ages.
Speaker 1:I had a few pumpkins stored for most of winter last year and yeah they're beautiful yeah, no, it's wonderful. Very versatile, in the kitchen too. Pumpkins yeah, absolutely. You touched on before, Brianna, the different varieties of foods you can grow that aren't always or so commonly accessible in the supermarkets. Is there anything you're growing that's a little bit unusual or something just a bit different?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I reckon my feijoa is a fruit that's less common. I also grow at the moment this really cute little thing. It's called a cucamelon. It's a cross. It's actually a type of cucumber but it's tiny. So imagine it tastes like a sour cucumber but it's the size of a grape and it looks like a watermelon. So they're super cute and you definitely don't see them at the supermarket and they're an awesome little garden snack. So again, I grow them over an archway and they're the perfect little garden snack that you know my kids just pick off and eat as they're playing outside.
Speaker 2:That's a little bit quirky and different, but I guess what I've learned like on that over time is that you see all of these amazing people's gardens that have you know acres to play with and they grow all of these different, random and rare things just for the fun of it.
Speaker 2:And whilst one day, you know, we do dream to have property so that I can do that and have a bit of a play, what I've learnt with my small space is that you have to be really smart with how you use it. I don't have a lot of space to waste to just kind of trial things I do every now and again for just for fun, I might put one or two random things in, but most of my space is really well utilized to things I know my family will eat and that what we eat a lot of. So I know at the start I was like, oh, this is fun, we never eat this, we've never had this before. But let's just throw all these things in and that's where you kind of end up with wasted food and wasted space. So I've learned to really restrain myself and focus on the things that I know my family are going to eat. So that's going to save on wastage, it's going to save money for us and it's best utilising our space.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Yeah, that's a very valid point. I think we've all been a little bit guilty of that at times.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I'm always tempted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it is. It's very tempting. I also like a lot of people that I hear from say how much they enjoy offering guests and friends and things, something really quirky. If you have somebody over for dinner and you've got purple cauliflower and things like that, that can be quite the novelty. But, like you say, it has to translate well for you in terms of what you would be buying otherwise. Is it going to actually save you at the supermarket if you grow that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly right. It's got to be worth that effort.
Speaker 1:Exactly yes. And the cucamelons. They sound like a fantastic lunchbox snack too, the kids' school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're a bit of fun. Yeah, and I actually saw on another Instagram page only this week that someone had actually pickled them. I'm like, oh, what a great idea. So when I get my next harvest, that will be my next thing.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. And what season do they grow in the cucamelons?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they're a warm month, so I got them into the ground as seeds during summer and they're still happily producing away at the moment.
Speaker 1:Excellent. And so what would you say? Brianna has been your biggest challenge in gardening in a small space.
Speaker 2:Just the fact that it is a small space in general. But I suppose I'll explain why. I guess that when you have property or lots of land to play with, I suppose you have the benefit of really large open space. So you're not dealing with weird shapes and nooks and crannies and corners and narrow growing beds. You're not dealing with shadows and shade. Which is probably the hardest thing when it comes to a small space is the sun, because we all know that fruit and veg generally lack full sun. The more sun that you can give them, the more that they will produce, the faster they ripen. So when you are surrounded by tall infrastructures, my back fence is a massive two-story house that would be a metre off my back fence, so that casts a heap of shade. Be a meter off my back fence, so that casts a heap of shade. They've got the shade from my house. And then obviously there are two meter high fences around everybody's properties.
Speaker 2:So the shadows casted from and the shade casted from all of those infrastructures is really really difficult and I had to over a good season or two. You have to be patient. You've got to really watch. Over a good season or two. You have to be patient. You've got to really watch and record and take note or photograph, like I did, the shadows movements throughout a whole year, because it's different from summer to winter. So in summer my whole garden is almost in full sun just because the sun is so high, but then in winter the whole narrow corridor that runs along the side of my house is full shade. So where I grow watermelons there all summer, which we all know love the heat, it's complete shade in winter and I can't grow anything. It's a dead space. So that has been a big challenge and learning curve is to actually watch, season to season, how the sun moves and how the shadows are thrown in different parts. And, yeah, working with that, yeah that's very good advice too.
Speaker 1:Like you say, it's not the same. All the time Changes. Yeah absolutely yeah. So what are some of the things currently growing in your garden?
Speaker 2:So we're currently transitioning and I'm very onto it this year. I often have seasons where I'm way behind. You know, life takes over and things aren't in as early as you like, but I've actually got lots of my brassicas in now. So, being in a cool climate, I do have the advantage of I can get my brassicas in pretty early. I had them in actually probably a good few weeks ago now and I actually started sowing my brassicas mid to end of summer, so they've had a really good head start. So I've got broccoli going in.
Speaker 2:I tend to grow the sprouting broccoli. Again, that's a choice I make because of my small space. If you're not sure what the sprouting broccoli is, I suppose that's similar to what you would see like broccolini If you're buying broccolini from the shops. They're just little heads but they produce lots. Just little heads, but they produce lots of little heads. So I can get lots and lots of harvests from it and get many dinners worth of broccoli, rather than grow a traditional broccoli head and just harvest the one head and then it's done. So I can make better use of that space by growing something that gives more. So I've got plenty of sprouting broccoli in.
Speaker 2:I've put in kohlrabi. Kohlrabi is a fun one that, yeah, again, you don't see normally at the supermarket. But that's a type of brassica and it's comparable to the stem of a broccoli. So if you like and eat the stems of the broccoli, it's got that similar consistency, and I cook it in the same way as I do my steamed veg during winter. So that's a bit of fun. And that comes in purple and white varieties, so a bit of fun and colour in the garden in winter. What else have I got? Peas are all in snow peas and sugar snap peas, again, all grown vertically. Everything you can grow up is awesome. Carrots and beetroot have just gone in as well, and herbs I've got parsley and coriander. So that's kind of what's coming in now.
Speaker 1:Lovely, and do you ever have excess produce from your small space garden?
Speaker 2:Overly. I've gotten quite good now. I probably did at my first year of growing for each season because I wasn't sure exactly how much each would give me. So I kind of just as you do, I just want lots of everything. So I put in like I had like 10 silverbeet plants and it's like, well, I didn't realize that a silverbeet plant is really prolific and one will pretty much keep producing leaves all winter and I probably didn't need that much silverbeet. So, you know, this year I've learned from that and I have two or three that will give me and my family what we need and that's more than enough.
Speaker 2:Whereas, you know, broccoli we pretty much throughout winter. All three of my boys love broccoli husband and two kids. So I know that that's something we have almost with every dinner. So, yes, I've got six broccoli plants for the four of us. But yeah, it's just learning. I suppose being okay with learning and making that mistake. At the start I had plenty of stuff to give to other people or to just add to compost, really. But yeah, I've learned and I've kind of figured out now how many of each thing I need for my family. Excellent.
Speaker 1:So which plant, would you say, offer you the most harvest in terms of space required? For winter, yeah, or for each of the seasons?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I reckon the sprouting broccoli is a really good one If people want to grow brassicas. So when I say brassicas I'm saying cauliflower, broccoli, cabbages. The sprouting broccoli gives you most bang for buck. Cauliflower's they're a massive head, they take up a lot of space and you just get the one head of cauliflower. Same with cabbage. They are really large. I know you can get the miniature varieties, but they do take up a fair bit of space and you're just getting that one harvest. So I tend to stick to things that you get multiple harvests from, so harvest. So I tend to stick to things that you get multiple harvests from. So the sprouting broccoli lettuce lettuce grows now in the cool regions. So I, rather than say, grow an iceberg lettuce where I have to wait months for one ball to form and then I cut that off and it's done, I grow the leafy ones where I just harvest the outer leaves of the lettuce and it will just keep giving me more, and through winter I can pretty much just show one, maybe two successions of lettuce and that gets me through the whole winter. So lettuce is a really good one. And peas, snow peas, snow peas are so easy and they're so prolific. The more you pick, the more flowers they put on and the more peas you get. So I found that snow peas are a winner and they're great for the lunchbox. They're great for the kids to just snack on when they're out and about. So, yeah, I think snow peas are a goodie In terms of for summer.
Speaker 2:If you want to go for things that you're getting more bang for buckes, you could just plant one and get pretty much a whole summer's worth of tomatoes if you are smart about the variety that you pick. So I learned over time that if you're growing from seed, if you check out on whichever website you're buying your seeds from, in the description about that type, for a lot of them it gives you an estimated yield size for that particular variety and for some of them the yield side might only be a couple of kilos of tomatoes. Where I grow one called a Tigerella tomato and that's like 15 to 18 kilos of yield which is constantly picked throughout the season and they're medium-sized tomatoes, I would say. They're not as small as your cherries and they're definitely not as big as your beefsteaks. So they're a nice mid-sized cherry, which means you can use them in sandwiches. I've made sauce with them and put them in salad. So it comes back to just knowing and learning and choosing the right varieties and being smart.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, picking a really productive tomato and capsicum too. I know a lot of people love to grow capsicum in summer but they can be tricky because they can take up a bit of space, because they're almost like a miniature bush shrub and they take a long time to develop. So you might only get four or five, maybe six capsicums off one capsicum plant when I've discovered a variety called the Mad Hatter capsicum and they're these really cute and they look like literally the Mad Hatter if you've seen Alice in Wonderland his hat they look like his little hats hanging and it is super prolific Like I've gotten multiple harvest baskets of these capsicums from one plant, so I always opt for that variety rather than a traditional capsicum.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, yeah, so it really is about doing your research as well, particularly when you're working in a tiny garden. That's more important, of course. But the produce in terms of space I think that applies to everybody really If we can plant, you know, have exactly what we need to provide for our garden. We know if we're planting excess to share or to preserve or things like that. I think it's very, very smart and everybody should check that out. That harvest ratio you mentioned Very handy. So what's been one of your biggest successes, brianna, something you're really proud of that you conquered in your tiny garden?
Speaker 2:So this might be probably not what people are expecting, but this summer I got a blue banded bee into my garden, which for me is huge. So before I started gardening, I didn't know that there was such thing as an Australian native bee and I certainly didn't know that they were blue. And when I discovered them, seeing them in other people's gardens, I thought right, I am getting some of these native bees into my garden, which I did think was a bit of excessive goal really, because, like I said, I am in a tiny little patch in the middle of suburbia. I'm surrounded by concrete. All my neighbours have synthetic turf. I thought how on earth am I going to get these little critters to find my garden? So I've spent just as many years as I have in the backyard creating a productive garden.
Speaker 2:My front garden is very, very different. My front garden gets full sun, full wind, smashed by elements. So it needed hardy, tough plants. So it's naturally a native garden where it's very much focused on Australian natives and food for wildlife, food, habitat and shelter for wildlife. So I thought, okay, this is the perfect time to try and put in whatever these blue banded bees like. So it's jam packed with. I've got some lavenders in there because I know they like lavender. I've got grevilleas, I've got paper daisies you know all of those pollen rich Australian natives.
Speaker 2:And then, sure enough, this summer I heard I don't know if you've never heard a blue banded bee before. They sound completely different to a regular bee. Look it up if you've never seen them before. They're adorable. But they have this really loud buzz, not like a normal buzz, and I was like what is that sound? And my husband turned around and, sure enough, there's a blue bee. So that was just a huge win for me to know that you know that saying of if you plant them, they'll come. I honestly didn't believe it. I thought how on earth are they going to find me here? Like, where are they going to come from? There's nothing around me. But no, they do. They really do. So I've had blue banded bees, I've had resin bees and leaf cutter bees, which are all Australian natives. So that's been really fun. And to educate my kids and my students at school, I share my photos with them and yeah, it's been really exciting.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fantastic. And, as they say, where there's a will, there's a way. But when it comes to bees, there's certainly also quite the need. So the more people planting pollinator gardens, the better. I say yeah, absolutely yeah. So, to summarise those, you say they're like the lavender, the grevillea. What else have you got in there? Okay?
Speaker 2:so I've got some corriers, I've got grevilleas, I've got calistemon, some flannel flowers, paper daisies I love the paper daisies. The paper daisies are a really great one if you're looking to add that pollinator food in a really cheap, easy way, because Australian natives can be really difficult to grow from seeds so you're buying established plants which we know can get pricey. So I've grown with success, really easily, heaps of different paper daisies, both the miniature 30 centimetre high versions and the massive one to two metre tall ones. So if you're looking to add some native plants in, that you can do really quite cost effective and they're really easy to collect seed from as well. So once you kind of buy the seed, once they either keep self-seeding themselves or you can keep the flower heads and re-sow them again the next season. So yeah, paper daisies are really good, easy ones.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, and they add some nice colour too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do. They come in so many beautiful varieties.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Speaking of seed saving, I saw on new Instagram page and I did want to ask you you were doing a demonstration of a really quick and easy way to save seeds. Would you mind sharing with our listeners what your method was?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I like to just do things the lazy way. Really, when you've got a two-year-old and you're a teacher, short and sharp and fast, things are good. So I actually wait until the flower heads. It obviously doesn't work with all flowers, but for things like my Echinacea so the video was of my Echinaceas, if you don't know what they are. They're beautiful perennial flowers. They're like massive cones and the petals like hang down, so really really pretty.
Speaker 2:I actually let the flower head completely dry out on the plant and I just keep an eye on it. I make sure that there's no rain coming to spoil the seed and I just wait until I can actually get to a point where, if I touch the really dried out flower head, I could see the seeds wiggling or falling off. And then, when it's at that point, all I did was took my bowl out with me and, rather than just deadheading the plants and then throwing it in the compost or in the green waste bin, which most people do, I took my bowl out with me, I shook the plant head upside down into the bowl, all the seeds fall out, and then threw the stem into the compost bin. So it can be as simple as that. Just, you know, shake the plant out into a bowl and then that will just go into a brown paper bag where I'll just label it and put it in with my other box of seeds, ready for next summer?
Speaker 1:Fantastic, so it certainly can be done. You don't have to be spending hours and hours handpicking individual seeds out of them. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, really easy, excellent. So is there anything you have, brianna, for the future lined up, something that you'd like to try in your garden, or a tiny garden idea that you think is worth a try?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm look, I'm always experimenting. I think that's one of the biggest learning curves that I had when I started gardening. I think if you're new to gardening, you have this fear of, oh, but I'm going to kill it or or it's going to die or it's not going to work, and you have to kind of be okay, especially if you're experimenting with a small space and thinking outside the box like we have to. Chances are, things are not going to work and that's okay. So I'm constantly trying weird and wonderful things.
Speaker 2:But my big project now that I'm doing is I am actually getting rid of the lawn in my nature strip and extending my native front garden into the nature strip and fully planting that out. So obviously it's dependent on which city council you're in and the rules that they have regarding the nature strip, but the council that I'm in do actually allow it and actually encourage it for biodiversity and for wildlife. They obviously have rules. So you do need to make sure that you've either spoken to your council or you've looked onto their website, which is what I did for their rules, things like you know, not obstructing views and considering whatever's going on under the nature strip water, water and internet and pipes and things.
Speaker 2:But once you've kind of done a bit of research and figured out what you can and can't do, I think people's nature strips are kind of a wasted piece of space. For most people it's just dead lawn sitting there. But lawn really to me should be a place to play and sit and be able to walk comfortably. So I'm not saying, you know, never have lawn. We have lawn in our backyard for the dogs and for the kids, but for the front lawn, like no one goes and sits on the nature strip next to the road and plays on that grass. So you know, to me I'm like, well, that's wasted space. So that's going to be garden now.
Speaker 1:So I am currently in the middle of slowly digging up and taking off the grass that's there and planting it out with more natives. So that's my next big thing oh, fantastic. And yeah, like you say, your council allowing that. That's brilliant. More and more councils are getting on board with that. So if you're unsure, it's worth calling up or sending an email and finding out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I had had a lot of people when I first shared that on my Instagram page last week what I was doing. I had so many people reach out and think and ask me you know, did you have to get permission for that, or particular clearances and things, or are you even allowed to do that? It actually shocked me how many people thought that they just weren't allowed to do anything with their lawn. So I just feel like it should be more promoted that that nature strip can be better used. Something so small as putting a few extra grevilleas or paper daisies in your nature strip that isn't used anyway could have a huge difference on our native wildlife.
Speaker 1:Another native seed that's quite easy to germinate is the billy buttons too, and the bees do love those.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do have those as well. They're gorgeous, they do, and they look so sweet. There's little yellow balls sticking up and bopping around in the breeze in summer. Yeah, they're a really good one. They do so and they look so sweet. There's little yellow balls sticking up and bopping around in the breeze in summer. Yeah, they're a really good one.
Speaker 1:They do. So those, along with the, like you say, the paper daisies, the everlasting daisies. If there's anyone out there thinking I can't grow from seed, give those a whirl, I think, yeah, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, because, yeah, natives can be really tricky because a lot of them with that being native, you know, some of them need to be opened up with smoke and heat and because they've come from our native environment. But and I was really taken back and thought I can't grow native from seed. But yeah, no, these definitely, you absolutely can. They're super easy and I have a pretty good germination rate with them and I don't really give them any extra love or make any particular soil mixes or anything. When I do them it's literally just premium potty mix. Take out some of the big chunks, throw your seeds in. It's as easy as that.
Speaker 1:Easy, excellent. So is there something, brianna, that you'd like to see more of in the gardening realm?
Speaker 2:I think people's more organic approach to gardening, I think, is what I would like to see more of, and people thinking of more alternative ways for pest management and to control pest pressure in the gardens. It's still cringey and I have to hold it back when I go to my hardware and see people picking up all of those pesticides and weed killers and things and putting them into their trolleys. I just want to say, oh stop, please stop, because there's so many other ways that you can go about growing organically. So my garden is completely organic. I don't spray anything. It's all about and it takes time but creating an ecosystem where the creatures and plants all kind of take care of themselves. It's not to say that I don't have a single aphid in my garden. I absolutely do, and I absolutely do occasionally lose a plant or a harvest from a pest, but all in all, considering I don't touch it with any pesticides, any herbicides, anything. I think my harvests are pretty good and proof that you don't have to kill everything or cover everything in chemicals for it to grow.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, that's a wonderful point to make, and there's also things like you know, sacrificial plants. You can do so if you know that you might get some aphids on that one. You know, planting a sacrifice plant out a little further away from or in a different area to where you're growing the ones that you plan on eating is also a practical idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. I have a bit of a rule with whenever I plant any vegetables into my veggie gardens, I also have to add with it a flower of some kind, whether it's a nasturtium, whether it's an alyssum, whether it's snapdragons. There's multiple marigolds, depending on the season and what I'm planting, but I always put flowers in with it, and not only does that make it look pretty, it does. It's very aesthetically pleasing to have your flowers in amongst your fruit and veg, but it also serves a purpose. With that interplanting, you're creating an ecosystem. The more things you mix up and plant together, the more diverse the soil is, the more diverse the scents and the different types of plants that are growing together and they help each other out. They bring in lots of different bugs, both your pests and your garden helpers, things like your ladybirds and your parasitic wasps.
Speaker 2:And again, I was one of those people that was really sceptical. I'm like how on earth can I have all of these brassicas completely covered in aphids and just leave it and wait for a wasp to come and fix it? But you know, I actually watched it unfold. This year I had one of those. I don't know the scientific names, but it's one of those swan plants that the monarch butterflies is a host plant for them. I don't know if people know those. They've got those big green kind of fairy balls on them. But I planted it because it's a host plant for the monarch butterfly and I was hoping to get some monarch butterflies in the garden.
Speaker 2:But then throughout summer I watched it just get completely covered in aphids, like completely. You could see every new shoot and growth from the plant was completely swarmed and I thought, oh my goodness, like it's going to just get decimated and die and I thought, well, I'm going to leave this as a bit of an experiment and I'm going to watch it and I let it go. And sure enough, I reckon within a week, a week, of just not touching it, the plant was completely covered in ladybirds, ladybugs, both the larvae I don't know if you've seen the little larvaes of a ladybug. They're very they've like little long black critters. They look nothing like the actual ladybug. So it was completely covered in them and ladybugs and parasitic wasps which I had never seen before in my garden.
Speaker 2:But I saw this little guy hovering around and crawling around on the leaves and sure enough, I did the old Google with a photo and it was a parasitic wasp and, yeah, I was watching it going around and taking care of all the aphids and I just left it. I left the plant and now when I go out there there's not a single aphid on it. So you know, it just proves if you just leave it, if you just, you know, it might not look slightly for a little while, sure, but you don't have to spray it and kill everything else around it. Because if I had sprayed that plant, it also would have taken out the ladybugs, it also would have taken out the parasitic wasps. But I don't think people realize that these things don't just target the pest, they'll take out anything. So as soon as you put it on there, you're getting rid of the good stuff as well as the bad stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very true and there is a balance in nature. That's very true and there is a balance in nature. If we educate ourselves on what we need, like you say, that variety, those different things, what is actually found in nature, rather than trying to achieve manicured, pristine gardens, growing only what we want, nature will provide. And if we're providing the right conditions, that balance will occur. Like you say, you see, the bugs come in, the beneficial insects and it all takes care of itself. We're not supposed to eat 100% of everything we grow or plant. It's not realistic. You know we will lose some things along the way, but it's that balance that comes into play and levels things out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly right, yeah, yeah. So I'll finish up, brianna, with a question for you, for our listeners. If there's anyone out there listening today and thinking, okay, I'm going to give small space gardening a go, be it on an inner city balcony or a small suburban yard, what's the one piece of advice that you think is paramount?
Speaker 2:Start small. Don't feel like you have to go and have 17 raised garden beds or 10 pots to begin with. Just start small. Focus on getting your soil right. That was a huge thing for me in the beginning, not underestimating the importance of getting your soil right. So focus on your knowledge of how to get really good, rich soil that's filled with organic matter that's going to serve its purpose. Do a bit of research into that. And, yeah, start small. Pick a few plants that you know you or you and your family eat, whether that's one or two pots. I know at your hardware you can get those really large, like 80 centimeter diameter pots. Start with one or two of those. Throw some lettuce in there, put a broccoli in there, put some parsley in there, and watch that and learn how to keep that thriving, and then you'll find that it's actually easier than it might appear. Start small, master that and then slowly add to it.
Speaker 1:And learn from that, one thing at a time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful advice, brianna, thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been really fantastic chatting with you and I'm sure we have listeners out there who have been inspired by your accomplishments today. But before we sign off, could you please share with us how our listeners can find out more about you and your garden?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So. I have an Instagram page where I share everything that I'm doing in my garden. I like to do how-to videos and just do me just walking through the garden, talking random nonsense about what's happening. So you can find me at tinygardengrowing. My name's Brianna, so you'll see that all there in my bio. So, yeah, come and give us a follow or jump in my DMs and have a chat. I get a lot of people inboxing me and asking for advice or you know how do I start out or what do you do for your soil. So don't be afraid, I'm always up for a chat and I love to share what I've learned along the way. So I'd love to have you joining along with me.
Speaker 1:Excellent, thank you. And for those who haven't already been following Brianna on Instagram, do check it out. There is a world of knowledge there and you will be surprised by what her tiny garden is producing. That address, again, for her Instagram is tinygardengrowing. You've been listening to how I Grow, produced by the Seed Collection in Melbourne, australia. It is our aim to make gardening more accessible to more people, and this podcast is one of the many ways we're doing that. If you don't already know who we are, jump online and visit wwwtheseedcollectioncomau. You'll find a treasure trove of gardening information, as well as a huge range of seeds and garden supplies and accessories. That address, again, is wwwtheseedcollectioncomau. Thanks for listening.