Turning Front Yard Into Thriving Veggie Garden | Great Home Ideas

Charlie revamps a plain, lifeless front yard into a vibrant edible garden bursting with colour and flavour. He utilises a beautiful mix of fruits, aromatic herbs, and pollinator-friendly flowers to turn a simple outdoor space into a thriving oasis. Perfect for anyone dreaming of growing their own food!

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If you head to the supermarket these days, you could be spending up to 12 bucks on one of these. So, I reckon that’s a pretty good reason to become self-sufficient and start your own edible garden. Joel Ollie, who’s this little one? Ariela.
Hello. Is this your house? So, tell me a bit about the house, guys, in the garden. Well, we’ve been trying to grow veggies, but they’ve always been out the back, and we’ve had no success out there. So, we’ve going to try and get some veggies going out the front. You’ve already started out the front here. You’ve got things like rosemary, chilies, stuff like that. But then the weeds have taken over. What happened? They did. Well, we had a baby 10 months ago.
That will do it. Yes. Yes, that will do it.
Yes. And that really did put a bit of a halt on things.
My plan for the front garden is to get rid of all the weeds and turn it into an edible front garden space. So, be really nice when you get home, walk through the garden, you got the lovely smell of the herbs, and then when you’re out here, hopefully it’ll bring in the community as well. Good job. You got a front fence as well. You want them in, but you don’t want them stealing your veggies.
That sounds wonderful. You
happy for me to do that?
Great. Please go for it. Homeowners have got this fantastic old wash tub. Now, these are all across Australia, but if you’re not lucky enough to have one for yourself, you can probably pick one up from a salvage yard. They make fantastic planters. If you get the drainage right, you can raise them up and the concrete heats up, which is perfect for root growth. [Music] To create a solid base for our trough, I’ve just put down two pavers. And on top of those, I’m going to lay a couple of besser blocks. And the reason I’m doing this is just to bring our trough up a little bit higher. That way, it’s less backbreaking work when you’re tending to your veggies. [Music] For our raised planter, I’m just planting it up with mixed leafy greens. We’ve got some spinach, end dive, and lettuce. It’s perfect to put them in a garden like this because it’s so much easier to work with them when you get home from work. Now, all over the east coast, this is perfect to be planting now, but you always want to check what’s in season to avoid disappointment. I thought it’d be a really good idea to put a grow screen along this wall. That way, we’re going to save space and we can start putting some plants vertically. And to do that, I’m using H4 treated pine posts, which I’m going to concrete in. [Music] And then I’m going to use a stainless steel wire across the top so we can have a variety of plants growing up this vertical feature. Having a simple wire between our posts means this grow screen is really quite versatile. We could put some netting on there and grow sweet peas. You could even do cucumbers or even some runner beans up here. I’m actually going to be doing tomatoes. And this system is called growing them like accordance. And that means long and straight. And that’s where our piece of string comes in. You want to be supporting the growth up and removing any of the side shoots out. That’s these ones. It will grow long and thin and you’ll get lots and lots of fruit because there’s light on that fruit. Investing in your soil is the most important thing you can do in your garden, especially if you’re growing herbs and veggies. Now, I’m just using mushroom compost cuz that acts like a sponge in the soil to hold on to moisture and nutrients, which is perfect for things like leafy greens. To add to the list of our edible plants, I’m using some strawberries. Now, strawberries are low growing. So, I want them to be at the front of the garden bed so they’re easily accessible and they’re a great way to get kids involved in the garden. Towards the back in the sunny spot, I’ve planted some chilies just to fill in around that tomato that we’ve planted. And then some zucchinis as well. Now, zucchinis like quite a lot of water and quite a lot of space. That’s why they’re going at the back of the bed to give them enough room to ramble around. [Music] To add to our edible plants, I’m putting in some ornamentals. Now, this is a great way to add structure to your garden bed. At the end of the harvest, when you remove things, you don’t want to leave lots of gaps. That’s why ornamentals are great, and they’re also great for bringing in bees and insects. Now, this is an ornamental kale. You can eat it, but really, it’s not grown for its taste. It’s grown because it looks so cool. And this is paracalus. Have a look at these bright flowers. That’s sure to bring in a smile every time you look at it. The best part about all this planting though is you can all get it from Bunnings. And over on this side of the garden to balance out the trough, we’ve got a lemon scented myrtle. Now, this can get quite big, but by trimming it down, you get all the lovely clippings that make a great cup of tea. Now, we all know mulch is really important for your garden. You want it to be about between 50 and 75 mm thick so the water can get down to your edible plants. But in an area where you’re constantly changing your produce over the stuff that grows really quickly, like your lettuce, you want to use something that breaks down quickly. So, if it gets mixed back in the soil, it’s not going to cause any problems. I really like using sugar cane cuz it gives you that grow your own look. [Music] When it comes to watering in your garden, it’s really important that you have a fine mist on there and spend some time getting it into the soil. That way, it’s not going to affect the delicate roots and you’ll get much better establishment. [Music] Hey Ollie, it’s been a busy day, but how do you think we did?
It has. This is fantastic. [Music] So, it looks great now, but it’s only going to get better with time, and you’re going to get loads of produce to take inside.
It’s brilliant. And I’m sure in the years to come, Ari is going to love coming and just grabbing a few things for the garden for us to cook with.
It’s going to taste better than your thumb, huh? [Music] There is so much to love about citrus in the garden or in a tub on a balcony. The lush green, beautiful emerald green leaves. The scent of the lemon blossoms as they fill the garden. And of course, spectacular fruit, delicious fruit. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a a lemon, a lime, an orange, a mandarin, or a grapefruit. They’re all really worth growing and easy for the home gardener. But there are a couple of things you need to watch out for if you want a crop like these. Winter is normally the time you hard prune your citrus, but that’s when the plants are often in full crop. And in some parts of the country, spring has jumped early. Look at all the blossom here everywhere. The aroma is beautiful. But if you’ve got branches lying on the ground, that’s actually stopping the air flow. So, I’m talking about light trimming, not hard pruning. And if you’ve got higher humidity because the air is not getting in, you’ll end up with more insects and more diseases. So, it’s time to sort of what we call canopy lift. It’s removing those lower branches that are sitting on the ground. It’s dead easy. [Music] brilliant. My next suggestion is every week go for a walk around your garden that is and keep your eye open because you might just see especially on your citrus little pests and problems like aphids. The black one is on the citrus. Maybe it’s meie bug, black sy mold, all the different types of scales. Or this fellow here, which is citrus leaf miner, which curls and distorts the leaves. But the good news is all of these problems are now controlled naturally. Oh. Oh. Little rising shine. Come on. Sea salt have brought out an amazing organic paraffin oil. Being organic, you can spray it on your foliage quite happily. And it’ll control all those insects that I mentioned a moment ago and a lot more as well. And all you need to do is just keep spraying. I would say about every week or two, especially on your citrus. [Music] My next tip involves feeding. Citrus are gross feeders. They need fertilizer at least four times a year. That’s every season, including winter. But you’ve got to remove the mulch. And the mulch, of course, is really important to hold the soil together, especially in heavy rain. But in summer when it’s really hot, it keeps the soil nice and cool and moist. Now whether you’re using organic, inorganic, chemical fertilizers, control release, slow release, it doesn’t matter. You can then throw it on and as the soil warms up, the temperature warms up, you get a bit of rain or you’re hosing it in, then the fertilizer starts to release all of its amazing array of nutrients. But once that’s happened, you do need to put the mulch back over the top of the fertilizer. It’ll keep working whileever you’ve got rain. I’m free. You better believe it. Feels so good. Nothing’s going to stop it. Feels so good when it’s so dangerous. Nothing’s going to stop it. Oh, it feels so good when we put it.
My final couple of tips. Firstly, yes, citrus grow really well in tubs. But there’s an invention in the last couple of years that’s really changed things. The understock, so you must always buy a grafted citrus, but the understock for a pot should be a dwarf roottock. Doesn’t mean you get dwarf fruit. It just means that the root system is going to be much smaller and more compact and grows in a pot for decades. The other thing is when you buy a citrus, whether it’s a seedless orange, a mandarin or grapefruit, you often find them with fruit on it in the garden center, don’t be mistaken. Take that fruit off. But you’ve got to be even braver still. And remove the flowers. Yep. For about two or three years, but you’ll be repaid tenfold cuz you’ll end up with a better bush, stronger branches, stronger stems, and better root system. So be brave and take off those flowers. [Music] Now, if you follow those couple of tips, all you have to do now when the fruit starts to appear is make yourself a beautiful fresh fruit drink. Cheers. [Music]