For many gardeners, living in a rental home can really put a dampener on garden dreams, but for horticulturist Brooklyn Mabbott her lack of home ownership hasn’t stopped her from creating a productive edible back garden her household can pretty much live off.
The 29-year-old lives in Bowden, ten minutes away from the busy city streets of Adelaide.
Brooklyn fell in love with the garden before moving in with friends five years ago and says the prompt to increase food production in the backyard just made sense.
"It's taken a few years, but the goal was basically to not buy any fruit or veg. We eat from here every day," Brooklyn says.
She also works part time at a market garden and with the excess produce from there as well as her backyard, she and her housemates haven't bought any vegetables from the supermarket for over a year now.
When Brooklyn moved into her rental home, there were eight raised veggie beds already in the garden.
"Great infrastructure to start with, it just needed a little bit of love," she says.
Initially the fruit trees were grown in pots and re-potted each year with Brooklyn hoping that "one day when I finally settled down, I could put them in the ground."
Luckily, Brooklyn's landlord agreed to have the trees planted in the ground and they've thrived ever since.
"When I approached my landlords, I told them I was starting a TAFE course in horticulture so I'd love to use the backyard to do my homework," she says.
"That would have been reassuring to them, that I wasn't going to start and let it turn into a weed pit."
The edible produce includes tomatoes, basil, carrots, beetroots, heirloom lettuce, spinach, broad beans and broccoli.
There is so much produce that Brooklyn and her housemates have set up a share cart at the front of the property.
"I want to be able to put any excess out onto the street for anyone in the community to grab," Brooklyn says.
Brooklyn grows most of her produce from seeds, and she's worked up her own specifically designed polytunnel device for propagation.
The two small polytunnels are installed with water misters that are set to a timer, and the flooring is set with a propagation heat mat. The positioning of the polytunnels is important and they're in an area that gets quite a bit of sun.
"I didn't really have a use for my driveway anyway, and it does have some thermal mass properties — the sun will hit the concrete and it will warm up throughout the day," she says.
In winter, when most backyard gardens are slowing down, Brooklyn makes sure hers is providing year round. The tomatoes planted in late January have been carefully trellised, pruned and fertilised, and still look and taste amazing.
While harvesting carrots and broccoli, Brooklyn explains that one of her in-ground garden beds is relatively new and was prepared by her chickens.
"I had (the chickens) living here for about four years before I decided to turn this into a market garden, so the soil has a lot of nitrogen already."
The beds were prepared using the Hügelkultur method, which involves layering fruit-tree prunings, leaves and compost into a deep trench and mounding soil on top. It's growing abundantly and working well.
This garden isn't the only one blossoming in this little corner of Adelaide.
On her street is a close-knit group of gardening friends who grow produce, share resources and learn from one another.
The friends swap produce from each other's gardens and share resources. Together, they created the Mudge Way Community Garden.
"It's really inspiring. I see that people get a lot out of it. Every time I invite them down, they say 'I really loved getting my hands dirty, I really needed to get into my garden'… It's nice to see people take some autonomy over this shared garden," Brooklyn says.
Neighbour Paul says: "I like to garden with other people and my garden doesn't have much sun access anymore — it's really good to watch the things grow that I can't get growing in my yard."
The community grows lots of produce and has a bed designated to native food, including native river mint, muntries and native parsley.
As community gardens pop up around the country, more people who are living in rentals or apartments are getting the chance to experience this community connection.
"It absolutely does grow community," says Brooklyn.
"One day I would like to own my own yard but when I look around, I realise I'm doing exactly what I want."
She advises renters to "go for it, grow your own food. We eat like kings here; we go out every day and get the tastiest produce — you can grow in any backyard".
If you think you may not be in your rental long term, Brooklyn says small fruit trees and perennial edibles, like blueberry bushes and strawberries, can be grown in large pots that can be moved to your next home.
"You can use relatively big pots and use a good quality mix. Always use worm castings seasonally," she says.
As potted plants tend to dry out quicker than if they were in the ground, setting up drip irrigation on a timer will help save water and ensure regular watering.
"It's really simple to set up. Just buy the tube and tap timer [from a hardware store], and you can attach it directly to any water outlet."
Check out the Gardening Australia website or watch the show on ABC iView for more stories.
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