Grow miniature vegetables

Vegetables varieties are often selected because they are high yielding and travel well. Huge vegetables may have been desired when large families were common but with more households consisting of couples and singles a lot of vegetables are wasted because they are simply too big to eat before they deteriorate. 

Try growing miniature vegetable especially bred to take up less room in your fridge as well as your garden.  They have the added advantage that you can grow more of them and stagger your sowing and harvest times.

There is quite a range of miniature vegetables available including beans, broccoli, cabbages, lettuces, bok choi, Chinese cabbage, corn, tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants, cucumbers, rock melons, pumpkins, watermelons, radishes, carrots and beetroots. 

Pick micro-vegetables

Pick some of your vegetables when very young and serve as micro vegetables.  It is trendy and tasty to garnish dishes with tiny vegetables.  Plant lots of seeds and use your first thinnings as micro vegetables. Carrots, beetroots, leeks, fennel work well.  You can also sow seeds of soft herbs such as basil and snip their baby leaves soon after germination.  Scatter these micro herbs over dishes for a tiny burst of flavour. Cress works well.

Eat baby vegetables

Harvest some of your vegetables before they reach full size.  If you wait until they are all fully mature you will end up with a glut which if you don’t harvest and process at the right time will quickly become over mature.  Baby beetroot, carrots, peas, potatoes are delicious.  You can eat immature leeks, garlic and spring onions (which are just young white onions).  If you pick broad beans and sugar snap peas when they are very young you can eat the pods and all.  Young artichokes are tender and versatile and do not have a big hairy choke.  Stuff zucchini flowers and pick them when they are quite tiny.  This way you will be more likely to harvest all your zucchinis without any of them growing into giant marrows. Harvesting some vegetables early gives more space for the remaining ones to grow.  Also harvesting stimulates plants like beans to keep producing.

Pick and freeze

Pick vegetables and fruit at their perfect state of ripeness and freeze what you don’t need immediately and process them later.  For example, freeze strawberries on a tray and seal in plastic bags (vacuum ones are great).  When you have enough you can defrost the berries to make jam, or syrups, jellies, sorbets, or add to drinks instead of ice cubes.  Freezing on a tray first means the fruits or vegetables don’t form a solid lump and enables them to withstand vacuum packing.   Be conscientious about picking your vegetables and fruit and you will have a bigger harvest over a longer period.  For example, you can pick your tomatoes as they ripen, freeze them, and when you have enough have a sauce making day.

Cut and come again

Harvest just the leaves you need from leafy vegetables such as silver beet and the plant will keep on growing.  If the plant looks like it is going to bolt to seed cut out the centre to slow it down.  Some plants such as Chinese cabbages can be cut off and will sprout more leaves from the base.  Cut only a few stalks from your celery as you need them and the plant will keep growing.

Preserve your harvest

Bottle your fruit, freeze your vegetables, dry your fruit, beans and tomatoes.  Make your own sauces, jams, jellies, chutneys, fruit leathers, and pickles.  Store your potatoes, onions, pumpkins and nuts.  If you plan your vegetable garden well and preserve your bounty you should need to buy very few vegetables and fruits out of season.  While it may not work out much cheaper than buying green groceries at the shop growing your own gives a great deal of satisfaction and you know the history of what you are eating.

Save your seeds

Let some of your plants go to seed.  Some of them you can eat such as dried beans and corn (for popping).  Some seeds such as fennel and celery can be used in cooking.  Keep seeds for planting in the following season.  Recycle any leftover vegetable matter to make compost.