**With inflation raising it’s ugly head and the price of oil going through the roof it looks like the vegetable garden is back in vogue**

Our parents and grandparents all had the vegetable garden growing out back in the yard. They were a part of their lives but with cheap oil and cheap food and the rise of the supermarket our

generation moved away for the vegetable garden. Now with cheap oil and cheap food a thing of the past the vegetable garden is back.

But over the years our backyards have gotten smaller and in some cases very small so we have to redesign the vegetable garden in our backyards.

In our parents and grandparent’s day they had big backyards because they needed a vegetable garden just to survive. But with house lots getting cut in half so another house could be put on the back there is very little room left for a garden so we have to make do. The vegetable garden of the future will be the whole yard - both back and front in food. The lawn is a thing of the past.

The age of cheap oil is over so this will be the age of the vegetable garden.

If you cannot afford to put gas in your car then you can’t afford to put gas in the lawnmower. Possible the lawnmower of the future will be a couple of sheep. With the whole backyard as a vegetable garden it will mean we will have to do a bit more work like collect the vegetables to eat and throw all the vegetable waste material back on the garden as a mulch. And we must not forget watering. I prefer trickle or drip irrigation as you can nearly forget about watering and the pipes are very easy to set up. You just have to set up a few paths through your backyard so you can walk around amongst the vegetable in the vegetable garden.

Check out our Vegetable Gardening page and see what you think, but now is the time to stop thinking and just throw a few seeds around the house to see what happens.