(MATT) There's nothing quite like coming home and deciding what's for dinner based
upon walking around the front garden
(COSTA) Matt and Lucinda McManus live in a snug cottage in Lilyfield,
not far from Sydney CBD.
(LUCINDA) We decided to grow the veggies out the front
and we sometimes like to bring our guests through the front
and pick things on the way at the back
and then they can see us like putting it together and making the meals
The first thing I notice when I look at the garden is your selection here of
these steel garden bed edges they're really a great space saver aren't they?
Yeah that's right Costa when we first did an experimental garden here a few years ago
we actually used the the wooden railway sleepers and they look great but what we
found is they actually took a lot of space and so we fell in love with the
look of 'corten' steel and we're able to find these garden edges that both look
great but also give us the maximum amount of space in our garden beds.
As far as your planting goes, what have you sort of used as your guide?
Costa I do try and practice a bit of crop rotation but I'd like to pack things in and get lots of
lettuce out of the garden one handy thing I did notice is if you have
tomatoes at the back of the bed it's quite actually difficult to get to them
and tend to them so I realized to bring them all forward just a lot easy to
access and look after them.
One of the most really important things for us was
actually to automate the watering because we found when we didn't do that
I would just sort of forget a day or and would come out and things were dead or
dying so if we can take out the water as a consideration and just automate that,
then we just spent our time on more productive things.
And I notice over here that you've continued the theme with the with the steel garden beds
around your couple of feature trees?
Yeah we have. What we've done as well as filled them with more herbs just to give it more of an effect.
We've got this bushy olive herb here which is quite nice in salads...
and then this one which is just the puffiest thing, you know, it's this
creeping thyme so yeah I think that worked really well
So Matt's out the back doing his thing in his space,
what are you gonna cut and prepare for him?
Ah well let's say I get firstly some sage...
so we'll take this big one here... may as well get the lot.
It's a nice healthy piece look at that! That's great!
What else?
Let's get this thyme here... a bunch of thyme, that'll go well with the lamb too I think.
Oh I can smell it!
And we'll go back here and get some rosemary
and finally let's get a bit of mizuna as well...
It's looking pretty happy there.
Yeah I hope it tastes great, I'm sure it will.
It's out the back that this garden space really takes off
with its focus on plants and entertainment.
So do we need to request permission to come into Matt's zone here?
Here we are! - Hi!
Look at these! Well thank you.
(COSTA) Beware a Greek bearing gifts!
This is a great space up here
I love the fact that it looks back over the garden.
Thank you! This is what I like to call the 'barbeqorium'
Is that your word?
Oh well I sort of made it up... the emporium of barbecues!
I love new words!
Yeah
And I mean looking at this wall
you've really created an oasis with one plant!
Look absolutely we planted four or five different boston ivy's
and in the last two and a half years
it's taken off beautifully.
And then of course, I mean, what a feature!
I mean this Jacaranda!
and I love that you've built this deck around it to protect it.
Look absolutely. When we first saw the house the Jacaranda was just the stand-out
- it was stunning and it really makes this backyard.
The deck is actually sitting on
concrete piers, so it's not in the soil, so it allows for the Jacaranda to
get the water it needs as well as some nice beautiful air.
So what are you working on for lunch here Matt?
Look so Costa I heard you love spicy food
so what I'm actually going to do is
I've got these beautiful tiger prawns
which we got from the fish markets
and I'm going to use some Japanese Yuzu Kosho
It's the Yuzo lime, mixed with chilli and then we're going
to mix it with some garlic from the front garden and some salt and pepper.
So this is a Japanese grill that's typically used for yakitori or other styles
of Japanese cooking so as we sort of start to put this on you can hear that
sizzle straight away.
They don't need very long at all.
I also love to do things like a leek or asparagus and corn because they get a beautiful flavor and
they also char up nicely.
Do you get on well with your neighbors?
'Cos I imagine you must drive them to the point of starvation!
Ah look, we make sure that we've got plenty of food leftovers for them.
Here we go!
It looks absolutely amazing!
The veggies are just like colorful painting...
Serve out some salad as well, it's a bit of mizuna and a bit of shiso from the garden.
We often talk about 'patch to plate', but there's been
a few barbecue plates involved as well!
And it's clear to see that there's so much love
gone into this food, but also into the entire garden as well.
Just have a crack!
It's amazing what you can do in a small space
even if it's a few pots just to get some beautiful herbs out of
but if you've got a bit more space
you can actually get some really amazing produce out of it.