Could you survive if the only fruit and vegies you ate for a year where those grown in your own backyard? Jodie Vennitti from Perth, WA decided to set herself a challenge and try it out?
Jodie’s garden is productive and beautiful, although it hasn’t always been that way. ‘Originally when I bought it, it had no trees, with grass front and back,’ she says of her Coolbellup, Perth backyard. Jodie soon transformed the 728 m2 yard into a thriving permaculture food forest, inspired by the nearby Jetto’s Patch edible garden (profiled in Pip issue 8).
However as Jodie was busy working full-time and looking after her daughters, she wasn’t making the most of her yield. She found herself still buying produce from the shops and discovering forgotten wilting vegies at the bottom of the fridge crisper. So she decided she wasn’t going to buy any fruit or vegetables for a year and instead make full use of what she was growing. ‘I was already spending time in the garden maintaining it, so it was just making sure that as I was going around I was actually harvesting,’ says Jodie.