Jackie French - How to Guzzle Your Garden

We grow lots of different varieties of fruit at our place about forty-six sorts of apples, five sorts of oranges, plums, avocados, custard apples, cherries, peaches, pears, walnutsokay, you probably dont want me to list all of them (itd take the whole page anyway).

Theres never a time in the year when you cant roam around our garden and munch at least six sorts of fruit, not to mention heaps of different vegetables.

We grow a LOT of fruit. The birds feast on cherries and avocados and apples and strawberries, and the wombats munch fallen lemons (wombats are weird sometimes) and the wallabies guzzle oranges and the juice runs down their stomachs so theyre sticky and disgusting

You just start planting.

Many types of fruit trees dont fruit for four or five years, or even longer, and most of them take a lot of work, but there are some fruits you can plant that will give you stuff to eat in the first year.

If you plant strawberry plants in a pot today you might be eating strawberries in a few months time! Spit out the plum stones from the plums in your lunch box and you can grow a plum tree!

Some plants really have to be looked after watered and weeded and fed. But others just grow themselves. When you learn how to feed and water plants youll see how easy it is.

Its like riding a bicycle. Its hard at first, then you dont even think about it. The first few plants you grow may be hard work, then suddenly you think Hey, this is simple! Why didnt I do this before?

Ahabe sneaky.

Have you got a bare fence? Plant a passionfruit vine.

Have you got somewhere you can put a pot? Grow watermelons.

You can grow a cumquat tree in a tub on the patio.

You can grow potatoes in a bucket.

You can grow strawberries in a hanging basket.

Theres always room for more plants, if you really think about it. Keep reading and Ill show you how!

No excuse. Grow a pot of strawberries on a sunny windowsill, or a dwarf peach tree in a pot on the patio, or even parsley in your joggers, or transform your school so you can spend all lunchtime wandering from tree to tree guzzling

ANYONE can have a garden to gobble even if you live in the tiniest flat in the biggest city.

Who cares! Just plant the seeds from the fruit in your lunch box.

Most fruit trees take a lot of work.

They get fruit fly (those tiny grubs that wriggle all over the place which you sometimes find in fruit) and they need pruning, because the fruit only grows on new wood (and you need to keep pruning so the tree grows more new wood).

Forget about trees like that!

The fruit trees in this book are dead easy. And they grow just about anywhere.

Because in a few years youll get to eat the fruit.

Because the birdsll eat the fruit too and you can watch them guzzling and squabbling and yelling at each other to see who gets the best bit.

Because sitting up in a tree laden with fruit is one of the best spots in the world.

Because your house will look a heck of a lot more interesting with a few fruit trees.

Because you can ask your friends over to pick fruit, which is fun.

Because its fascinating to watch a miserable-looking stick turn into a fat big-branched fruit tree.

Because youll be helping the environment and it will make you happier.

You can grow a fruit tree almost anywhere that has at least four hours of sunlight a day, plenty of room for the tree to grow, and good deep soil.

Get your school to plant some in the playground or in a nature strip so everyone can eat fruit at lunch time.

Get your local council to plant trees along the footpaths, so all the kids can slurp the fruit as you go home from school.

Ask your parents to plant one in your backyard, so in a few years time you can munch the lot.

Most trees cost between $12 and $15 to buy.

Who cares? The giant multi-million dollar peach orchards near here were started by planting peach stones collected from a rubbish bin. All fruit trees can be grown from seed (except bananas, which grow from suckers new bits that grow out the side of the original tree).