Little Veggie Patch Co DIY Garden Projects

The Little Veggie Patch DIY Garden Projects includes over 38 of the best projects for those young and old wanting to transform their outdoor living space. It is broken into 6 categories from Kids, Recycled/Upcycled, X-Factor, Vertical Gardening, Gardening basics and Kitchen, and includes a variety of projects for experienced handy folk to quirky ideas that will involve the youngest members of the family. Projects range from the incredibly quick and simple, such as a self-watering milk-carton planter, how to grow micro-herbs and milk-crate planter boxes to large-scale building projects such as making vertical gardens from pallets and how to build an ultimate playhouse from recycled apple crates. Complete with a collection of recipes for what to do with produce in the kitchen truly makes this the ultimate gardeners companion. Written in a personable, approachable style with stories to accompany each project as well as clear step-by-step instructions with colourful photographs to match, The Little Veggie Patch crew will inspire the green-thumb in every reader.

Paperback. 271 pages. Published by Hardie Grant Books, Richmond, 2015. Written by Mat Pember and Dillon Seitchik-Reardon. 240 x 215 mm.

Mat Pember is Australia's best-selling gardening author, so it's strange that he doesn't consider himself a gardener. After hanging a commerce degree on his parents' wall many springs ago, he flirted with the idea of getting a real job before making his Nonna and Nonno proud creating two girls, Emiliana and Marlowe, he is striving to achieve what the naysayers call unachievable-running a thriving Melbourne business from a farm south of Hobart. When he's not writing books he's blunting his pencil contributing to publications such as Gourmet Traveller and Melbourne's Herald Sun, or otherwise trying to catch Tasmanian flathead.

Dillon Seitchik-Reardon identifies as a multi-passionate and is firm believer in doing as many different things as possible, regardless of ability. Although he was educated as an environmental scientist, Dillon quickly became disillusioned with research when he realised that most of it is conducted in air-conditioned, artificially lit laboratories. In 2012 he began working for the Little Veggie Patch Co as an environmental consultant, where he finally found the place to channel his scientific process while still working outside. Since then, Dillon has been instrumental in the development of the previous Little Veggie Patch Co book, 1-Minute Gardener, and the evolution of the business in general. He is also a regular contributor to Green Magazine. Dillon was raised in new Mexico and has lived back and forth between the US and Australia since 2007.

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Australia has diverse climatic zones from the tropical far north to the cold of Tasmania so there may be some tweaking for where you live. In general, the cooler months with less harsh sun is the time for:

• beans, broad beans and peas
• bulbs like onion, shallots, garlic
• Brassicas like broccoli, broccolini, cauliflower
• tomatoes, eggplant
• root vegetables like radish, beetroot, turnip and potato
• spinach, salad greens, silverbeet
• herbs, chives, coriander, parsley.

MOST IMPORTANT TIP: Just do it! Don't get caught up in not knowing what to do. Put some seeds in pots in a sunny spot and give it a go. Learn as you grow. Keep the water up and fertilise fortnightly with liquid seaweed.