Self-sufficient Sonia 'MY BACKYARD'S A SUPERMARKET!'

The savvy saver is using her passion for gardening to nurture her young family

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On a busy Canterbury street, Sonia Barrish's garden is bursting with colour and life. Nearly every inch of the urban section is covered in a food forest of 40-plus fruit trees and many more vegetable varieties.

Here, Sonia, husband Menzo and their three homeschooled children live on a 698-square metre section as self-sustainably as they can, harvesting 500 kilos of produce each year from their backyard.

"That's more than $5000 value," shares former statistician Sonia, 33, who's tracked their crops compared to supermarket prices for the past few years. “If I include hunting for meat and our chickens, it works out to more than $10,000 worth."

After seven years developing their urban garden dream, Sonia now only goes to the supermarket once every two months for staples like butter, cheese, flour and peanut butter. On average, this works out to around $50 a week or $2600 a year. Everything else the family of five eats, they grow or hunt themselves.