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Imagine hardly having to go to the supermarket. Imagine having a variety of healthy food available at your fingertips. Imagine having almost all the food you could ever need growing in the comfort of your own backyard.

Though this exact kind of a life might seem almost imaginary, a woman in Toronto named Julie nourishes herself with her own 4×8 meter vegetable garden for a large portion of the year, a style of living that she calls the 100 Meter Diet. Having spent a large portion of childhood on her grandparent’s farm, Julie became familiar with different kinds of edible plants, their optimal growing conditions, growing seasons, and today still learns from growing plants she is not familiar with. Julie says growing food has always come naturally to her; although it may seem as difficult labour for many, she finds picking fruits and making jam a relaxing part of her everyday life.

Julie grows a variety of foods while ensuring that at least something is always ready to harvest during the summer. For example, she says she can collect a lot of asparagus at the beginning of the summer, but must wait for squash until the end. Preparation for the garden happens year-round, however, with garlic being planted in the fall and starting pepper and tomato seeds indoors as early as mid-February. Julie clarifies, however, that she cannot always be completely independent, as she does not grow too many protein-rich plants like chickpeas, cannot grow certain herbs and spices because of Canada’s climate, and does not have access to animal-based products like eggs and milk, which does lead her to the supermarket for certain foods.

Even as an experienced gardener with an academic background in forestry, Julie subscribes to different magazines such as Small Farms Canada and experiments with different techniques of growing every year. She says to ensure not too many of one thing is planted at the same time, as she mentions a time when she accidentally planted too many radishes and they all went to seed, making it so they could no longer be eaten. If she has an excess of food, she often pickles it in jars, freezes it, makes jam, or shares it with her neighbours. Julie loathes food waste, and keeps her own composter in her backyard which she feeds right back into her crops whenever she can.

Julie’s garden is built from passion, history, and her devotion to sustainability. If you are looking for a way to eat healthier and more locally, starting you own backyard garden – or even participating in a community garden – is an amazing first step.