Even if you live in an apartment or lack outdoor space, you can still grow your own food at home. Planting herbs and vegetables on windowsills, indoors, or on small balconies is a cost-effective option that also benefits your wellbeing, according to experts.
Melbourne-based horticulturalist Justin Calverley says that if basic requirements like light, water, and nutrients are met, herbs and veggies can grow almost anywhere. He recommends leaf vegetables and herbs as the easiest to raise indoors, such as lettuces, which have small root systems that can fit in a baked bean tin. Other suitable options include spring onions, parsley, mint, basil, rocket, and kale.
For outdoor areas like balconies, winter vegetables like spinach, kale, peas, broccoli, and cauliflowers are simple to grow in pots, considering weight limitations. Longtime small-space gardener Wendy Siu-Chew Lee, who grew food on a rooftop balcony in Sydney for almost a decade, says greens and herbs offer the best value for beginner gardeners. She recommends a 'cut-and-come-again' harvesting method, where only outer mature leaves are picked, allowing the plant to keep growing.
Growing your own food provides multiple benefits. Professor Xiaoqi Feng from the University of New South Wales says it offers a microdose of nature in urban areas, improving mental and physical health. 'Watching something grow gives visible progress and is rewarding, helping to reduce stress and anxiety,' she explains. It also reduces food waste, as you harvest only what you need, and avoids plastic packaging from stores.
Starting a garden can be thrifty. Lee suggests using recycled plastic pots from nurseries and beginning with seedlings rather than seeds for beginners. Community seed libraries, like those in Geelong Regional Libraries, offer free seeds. Coordinator Katherine O'Neill notes that last financial year, nearly 19,000 seed package loans were recorded across nine libraries, accessible to anyone.
