a
program that will help you 
grow food, shelter your home from the sun 
and wind, 
create homes 
for local wildlife, use water wisely
and recycle waste 
Featured Resource
Common Bugs and Treatments
resources
Food
Ideas tips and tricks on what to grow and when.
Shelter
Use trees and vines to make your home more comfortable all year round.
Water
Be water wise! Learn about ways to be a water warrior.
Habitat
Birds and the bees. How do you make sure they have a happy home?
Waste
Your waste is another worm's treasure.
Connect with us for seasonal advice, tips and tricks. Get your questions answered and share garden pics with our community.
Did you know you can use gardening to cool ❄️ and warm 🔥 your home? Using vines and trees around your home can shade your home in the summer and reduce your cooling costs. 🏡 Join us online at 7pm on Wed 24 May for a workshop to help you cut your energy bill next summer.
This is a free event! Bookings via link in profile 🌱
Welcome to International Compost Awareness Week! We’re running a free compost workshop 10-12:30pm Sunday 7 May at the Grattan Gardens Community Centre, Prahran. We’ll cover how to do composting, worm farming and bokashi, pros and cons so you can decide which system is right for you, design options for renters and balconies, and plenty of other troubleshooting and tips.
This is a free event! Book your place via link in profile 🌱
Next up in our Festival of Food series is a Pickle Party and Produce Swap at Altona Community Garden on Sunday 30 April at 1pm! Come along and learn some pickling techniques, and bring your surplus garden produce, seeds, recipes, preserves, to swap and share in the bounty of the harvest season. (Link in profile 👆)
Just because you’ve only got a balcony`s worth of sunlight doesn’t mean you can’t grow herbs, veggies, and even selected fruit trees. Join us on Sat 15 April, 1:30pm at Maidstone Community Centre and see how you can put your patch, courtyard, or balcony to good use. We will cover suitable containers, plant varieties and sunshine requirements for your small area, so that you too can enjoy the satisfaction of being able to say “I grew it myself!”. We will emphasise low or no-cost organic methods and discuss growing in pots for renters and people with courtyards or balconies. 🌱
This is a free event, bookings via link in profile 👆
Our climate is changing so our gardens need to as well! Join Karen Sutherland from Edible Eden Designs for a free online workshop on Wed 12 April at 6:30pm. We’ll learn how to design food gardens to be hardier and more resilient to heat waves, drought and less frequent but more intense rain fall. Link in profile 🌱
Even in our temperate climate, Melbourne can support heat-loving subtropical plants by creating the right microclimates in your garden. Come along to the Sam Merrifield Library in Moonee Ponds tomorrow at 7pm and find out how to grow plants like turmeric, avocado and bananas with expert Karen Sutherland. You can bring some of your harvested seeds and take something new from our Seed Library.
This is a free event but bookings are essential (link in profile).
Get a head start on your winter vegie patch by planning early! This Wed 22 Feb at 6:30PM our Planning Your Autumn Garden workshop will help you make the most of pots and plots over the cooler months by learning what to grow, how to grow it and how to make it as productive as possible. We cover soil preparation, plant choice, starting from seed, on-going care and safer pest control.
Free event, bookings required (link in profile)
Want to expand your Habitat Garden and grow your knowledge about native plant propagation? This Saturday 18 February, Angela from Newport Lakes Native Nursery will walk you through the steps for cutting native plants, preparing your cuttings for planting and the process for planting each cutting. 🌱🌱🌱Participants will be given a selection of cutting materials and media during the workshop to demonstrate the steps involved with propagating native cuttings.
Free event, bookings required (link in profile).
Do you live in an apartment or unit? Bokashi composting uses a fermented grain to `pickle` your food scraps until they can be buried or dealt with through a regular compost process. This technique is easy to learn and ideal for small spaces.
You can learn bokashi in our next event this Sunday 12 February, PLUS a small number of Hobsons Bay residents will be offered a free bokashi bucket and partnership with Altona Community Garden as part of a Bokashi Buddy pilot project. This is a free event, bookings essential via link in profile.
This My Smart Garden event is proudly presented by Hobsons Bay City Council and Altona Community Garden.
Now that most trees have set their crop, it’s a good time to think about thinning aka removing some fruit. It feels a bit counterintuitive but this practice has a few advantages: larger and tastier fruit, reducing pests and disease hiding in tight fruit clusters, reducing risk of branch breakage and more consistent fruit production from year to year. If you decide to do it, think about how much weight each branch can hold, and generally space out the best fruits to a handspan apart. Thinning now = best quality fruit and better fruit trees later 👍🍎🌳 Or leave it alone If you prefer!
On Saturday 15 October we descended on the @hobsonsbaycc Civic Centre to learn about creating habitat gardens with @stem_emmalinebowman. We were awed by the power of microbats (who eat 600 mosquitoes a night!) and had new appreciation for the colour blue which attracts many native bees. The presentation was followed by a raffle of habitat boxes, and a delicious morning tea featuring native ingredients from Aboriginal-led @bunji.catering. Angela from Newport Lakes Native Nursery then spoke about the importance of locally indigenous plants and taught the group how to propagate grasses and groundcovers. Thanks to everyone who came along and please share some pics of your new habitat boxes and plants! 🦇🌳🐝🦉🐨🦋🦜🪵
