To me a Kitchen Garden is quite simply a garden designed and planted with food production in mind. The objective is not just self-sufficiency, it is to have a wonderful variety of fresh and flavoursome food growing in your own backyard.
For many this means growing fruits and vegetables using organic methods. For me personally I use a minimal chemical approach, and try to deal with soil health, plant nutrition and pest problems without the use of chemicals where possible.
Here are some thoughts from others:
Growing vegetables, herbs and fruit to pick fresh and crisp from our Kitchen Garden is important for our health and wellbeing. A Kitchen Garden provides the opportunity to experience eating really fresh vegetables. It also provides the opportunity to engage with plants, to experience the rewards of nurturing, to understand food and our relationship with food, to learn the challenges of food production and food security and to engage in productive physical exercise. Then of course, there’s the sheer joy of harvesting, cooking and sharing our own home grown vegetables, herbs and fruit.
Stephen Forbes. Director Botanic Gardens of Adelaide. Published foreword in the book Kitchen Garden A Beginner’s Guide, author Bruce Morphett 2010.
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With homegrown produce, you know it’s fresh and safe to eat. Then there’s the unparalleled satisfaction of knowing you grew it yourself. These are the accepted reasons behind our current renaissance in growing fresh produce at home. But I suggest we must also add a growing community awareness of the need to reconnect with nature and the environment around us. Is there a better way of achieving this than simply spending quality time in the garden growing your own fresh food?
Jon Lamb, gardening legend, journalist and quoted here from his 2010 book titled Homegrown SA published by Advertiser Newspapers.