Soul food

Growing your own veg is usually born of a desire to have fresh, wholesome food or ingredients to add to your cooking. And that’s exactly why Sahar El-Chiekh (pictured above) started gardening. Initially, she dabbled with small herbs and vegies in pots, but this quickly evolved into a bountiful backyard teeming with fruit trees, vegetables and exotic herbs. Of course, chooks feature too.

It looks like Sahar has been gardening her whole life but, amazingly, her productive patch only came to be over the past couple years. “I wish I’d grown up with a strong gardening influence,” she says. “My parents didn’t have a garden, but as kids we visited my uncle’s farm in Bringelly, in western Sydney, and I would spend hours in the greenhouses, eating the cucumbers and tomatoes straight off the vines.”

It wasn’t until years later, when she moved into a rented place with her own young family, that Sahar decided to start growing for herself. “I always had my uncle’s farm in the back of my mind; it was just about finding the right time and place to put down roots,” she says.

Sahar started with easy crops such as silverbeet and radish. As her confidence grew, she started experimenting with a diverse range of fruit and veg such as Tromboncino zucchini, taro and loofah. They thrived under her care, but she soon realised she had no real purpose for these plants. “It was exciting to have different options, but if you don’t eat those options or have a purpose for them, it’s not worth it,” she says. Now, her gardening philosophy is to “only grow what you eat.”

For Sahar, this meant leaning on her Lebanese cultural background, and she started growing plants such as Egyptian spinach (Corchorus olitorius), chickpeas, tomatoes, beans, eggplant, parsley and zucchini. “I wanted to grow these plants because I know how to prepare them,” she says. The flavours take me back to my childhood, when my mum would spend hours in the kitchen cooking with love for her family. Now, I get to do the same for my kids.”

Sahar’s vegies are all grown in raised beds or pots. “It was back-breaking trying to dig through my heavy, clay-based soil. I discovered Charles Dowding’s no-dig method and embraced it fully,” she says. “I avoid disturbing the soil too much but add compost and organic matter to the top of the soil before planting.” This allows her plot to flourish, while saving her back and improving the health of the existing soil.

Fruit trees were a must-have for Sahar, who has an avenue of potted varieties such as mixed citrus, guava, stone fruit and a ‘weeping’ mulberry. “The pomelo is my favourite; it takes me back to the first time I tasted one on a trip to Lebanon,” she says.

The ‘weeping’ mulberry is a full-sized mulberry that Sahar has trained to weep. “I bent the young shoots and tied them at an angle to the trunk so the branches droop towards the ground,” she explains. “I don’t need to climb on a ladder to harvest the fruit and it’s so much easier to net and protect from birds!”

Sahar also has full-sized versions of fruit trees that she keeps compact with regular pruning. “Dwarf forms are more expensive than non-dwarfing varieties, so with costs sometimes being limiting, I thought why not try keeping full-sized versions small?” Sahar has to root-prune every three years, but she doesn’t mind, especially when they’re all flourishing.

Header image credit: Brent Wilson