The LITTLE VEGIE PATCH CO's

Guide to Backyard Farming

by FABIAN CAPOMOLLA and MAT PEMBER

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New softcover book, 244 pages. Published 2012, colour photos throughout.

Backyard farming is a fabulous way to bring the production of food back to the most local of destinations - your very own backyard. It's amazing what you can achieve in even the smallest spaces - start your very own vertical veggie garden, forage for food from local streets or even create an edible garden on your nature strip!

Spend a year with The Little Veggie Patch Co, growing vegetables in pots and homemade window boxes, or maybe even building your own vertical garden if space is tight!

Each chapter in this practical guide covers a month of the year and includes advice on what is happening in the garden at that time, and which veggies, fruit and herbs you should be planting and harvesting. There are also delicious seasonal recipes using fresh produce - try the Haloumi Asparagus and Roasted Tomato Salad or the Beetroot and Chocolate Cake. Each month is divided into sections - What to plant, What to harvest, What to cook, Activity, Backyard Farming how-to.

The Little Veggie Patch Co's Guide to Backyard Farming is packed with fun and easy-to-follow activities such as keeping chickens, growing plants from cuttings, making cider and tomato sugo, and starting a backyard beehive. Learn how to use your home-grown produce to make delicious preserves and jams, or create garden-inspired gifts such as wooden herb markers or stencilled pots. On top of this, there are lots of activities that are perfect for kids, including sowing seeds, planting seedlings and making lemon cordial.

So, it's time to get into your garden (or out on your balcony or nature strip!) and get your hands dirty. Regardless of what kind of outdoor space you have, Fabian and Mat will help you grow fresh fruit and veggies, put great food on the table and discover your own inner backyard farmer.

The Little Veggie Patch Co's Guide to Backyard Farming is an Australian publication. Measurements are in metric

About the Authors
Growing up in an Italian family, for Fabian Capomollo, Sunday lunch would always consist of loud arguments, pasta and veggies from the garden, and would finish with an expresso and a selection of ripe fruit from the backyard orchard. Starting off in advertising before taking the leap to fulfil his dream of helping people grow food, Fabian and his wife and kids now have their own completely edible backyard in Melbourne.

All Mat Pember's childhood memories revolve around his Nonna and Nonno's backyard near Fremantle, WA. The veggie garden, the enormous garage, where the pork and fennel sausage would hang drying from the ceiling beams, and checking the chook shed for eggs, and then looking for what was ready for picking in the huge, rambling vegetable patch were cherished family traditions. Mat worked in landscaping before moving exclusively into edible gardening.

Fabian and Mat are now The Little Vegie Patch Co., a busy Melbourne-based business that specialises in helping people grow their own food.

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Backyard Farming Guide from The Little Vegie Patch by Fabian Capomolla and Mat Pember