By Rebecca Skilton
Nothing beats homegrown goodness.
No one knows that better than Nar Nar Goon North mother of two and green thumb, Meagan Rogers.
Having previously lived in a suburban block in Pakenham, Meagan and her husband Tom moved to their Nar Nar Goon North property four years ago in the pursuit for more space. Finding it in the form of their 12-acre property, it came as a given that the young family would construct a vegetable garden.
“Both Tom and I grew up on properties – so we always wanted space and moving here it was just a natural thing to build a vegie garden,” Meagan explained. “We had a tiny one in Pakenham at our old house, but of course Tom wanted it big, and he’s the one who does the hard work and construction, so we made it big.”
Assembled out of recycled materials, Meagan’s monumental vegie garden features salvaged fencing, second hand gates and a homemade arch for fruits such as cantaloupe and cucumbers to climb to optimum pickings.
However, it’s what grows in and around the recycled vegie garden that really takes the cake.
Thriving with an abundance of life, Meagan’s vegie patch takes on a different appearance depending on the time of year. Currently in its changing of seasons, an array of tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, beans, cantaloupes and strawberries are spread throughout the garden, the home-made patch perched next to the Rogers’ personal orchard.
“We’ve got 35 to 40 fruit trees,” Meagan explained. “We have a mix of apples, pear, peach, cherry, lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, and nectarine trees. But we’re picking a lot of apples at the moment … already I’m up to at least 20 kilograms and (the season) really hasn’t even started.”
With a wealth of produce adorning her gardens and orchards, Meagan admits that there are only so many times you can add the same vegetable to every meal, and continuously endeavours to find different ways to use her produce.
“I really enjoy the preserving side of things,” Meagan said. “When you have tomatoes, there here all at once, and you’ve got to do something with them – you can only eat so many tomatoes with your every meal – and you can get a bit sick of them.”
Using her grandmother’s 1986 Fowlers Vacola preserving unit, Meagan converts her kilos of extra fruit into an array of pasta sauces, relishes, jams and pastes, that once preserved can last from 12 months to two years in her well-stocked, overflowing pantry.
However, preserving and cooking isn’t the only thing Meagan’s fruit and veg have proved useful for, with the mother of two entering her produce into the 2017 Pakenham Show. Taking out second prize in the giant zucchini contest with a whopping 2.9 kg zucchini, Meagan also took out second prize with six of her cherry tomatoes, first prize with her golden jubilee tomatoes and another first place for both her purple climbing beans and Anzac biscuits.
Continuing to share her talents, Meagan also has a Facebook group, Homegrown Goodness, in which members can share recipes, tips and produce accomplishments, the group serving as a communal meeting point for other gardening and produce enthusiasts.
“I’ve started a Facebook group, so I’ve got local friends and mums on there, so we do a bit of buying and selling on the group,” Meagan explained. “(But) it’s also for people who don’t know when the right time to plant various things is and it can be a reminder of when is the time to do it.”
While gardening may not come easy to everybody, Meagan encourages everyone to ‘just have a go’ as you simply can’t go past the taste of home grown produce, the hard work paying off in the long run.
“The stuff you buy from the supermarket is just nothing compared to (what you grow at home)” Meagan said. “Even tomatoes; they may look so good in the supermarket, but they’ve got no taste, they’re just plain, watery nothing. And you can grow so many varieties – I’ve been growing yellow tomatoes which you can’t buy at the supermarket since they’re not good for commercial purposes.”
With no plan for ending her green thumb mission anytime soon, Meagan has her mind set on a number of future gardening and produce endeavours, with netting the orchard at the top of her priorities.
“I’d really love to net the orchard, and when we do that I’d love to get some geese, because apparently geese eat a lot of grass so it’ll be nice for them to keep the grass down. I’d then like to move the chook house up to the orchard for them to eat fallen fruit and all the bugs,” Meagan said.
“At the moment we just pick up all the fallen rotten apples and feed them to the cows … I guess really it’s just about reusing everything.”
Three tips for growing vegies:
1) Add lots of compost and manure to your soil before you plant your vegies
2) Vegetables grow best in a full sun position
3) Mulch around your plants to help keep the moisture in and weeds out
