If you keep putting off gardening jobs or work in your garden seems like a chore, then you might have lost the passion you had when you first started your veggie garden.
A great way to keep motivated and passionate about your veggie garden is to plant some really interesting and unusual plants. Rather than planting the same old tomatoes every year, try something different! You will be more motivated to see your interesting plants through to harvest and reinvigorate your passion for yoru garden.
To find unusual seedlings, seeds or shrubs you will need to do a little bit of searching. It might mean a drive to a country nursery or a garden centre off the beaten track – make a day of it! Also don’t forget you can search and order online. Here are some awesome and unusual examples of what you can buy and grow in Australia:
Peanut Middleton
Peanuts are very easy to grow and will actually improve your soil as they grow (peanuts are a nitrogen fixer). When you tell your friends you grew them yourself they will think you are peanuts!
Growing Peanuts
Turmeric
One of the worlds healthiest foods and very a productive plant that will produce a years’ worth of turmeric in a single growing season.
Harvesting Tumeric Root
Goji Berry
A very hardy plant with berries full of antioxidants. Don’t mind being in containers and can be grown almost anywhere in Australia. Comes in a shrub or vine variety.
Goji Berries
Coffee
You can grow and roast your own coffee bean at home. Can you imagine the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans engulfing your kitchen before you make yourself the best cuppa you have ever had!
Coffee Bean
Chocolate Pudding Fruit
The fruit grows with an olive like skin and is about the same size of an apple. The flesh is soft and rich like a chocolate mousse that you picked right from the tree. Prefers sub-tropical climates.
Chocolate Pudding Fruit
Caper Bush
Make your own capers by pickling these buds. Productive enough to supply your entire street with capers.
Caper Bush Flower
Miniature Kiwiberry ‘Issai’
A fast growing, self-pollinating Kiwi fruit that produces masses of miniature size kiwi fruit.
Mini Kiwiberries
Finger Lime
This Australian native citrus poduces long slender fruit filled with a tangy pulp. Requires grafting onto citrus rootstock for reliable output.
Finger Lime
Cucamelons (Mexican Sour Gherkin)
A vigorous Mexican plant that produces mini watermelons that taste like cucumber with lime. Grow just like you would a cucumber.
Cucamelon Fruit
Now that you have found a curious new addition to your garden, make sure you do your research into the best place to plant and maintain it. The extra excitement will turn into extra devastation if things don’t turn out right.
Tell me some of the unusual things you are growing at home in the comments section below!
