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
Planting seedlings
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.
Is your soil safe for growing food? For years we’ve been recommending the VegeSafe program as a way for home gardeners to access affordable testing of heavy metal contaminants like lead. Great news is EPA VIC are starting their own program, and it’s going to be free (except sample postage costs). Find out more at this Wed 21 Sept: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/whats-in-your-soil-find-out-with-gardensafe-tickets-399343054827 🌱🌱🌱
Nagami cumquats are a friendly snack-size citrus, with a sweet skin and sour flesh that you can eat whole and straight off the tree. Love their distinctive oval shape! Look out for these ripening now around the city, including here at the Newport Community Hub. 🍊 PS. Citrus trees often get a bit yellow at this time of year, but they usually green up when the soil warms up again.
Gardens are so helpful during financially stressful times, and you don’t have to miss out if you’re renting a small space. 🌱 It’s a good time to revisit Rabea and Steve’s rental unit garden, where they were growing nearly all their herbs and greens in about 4 square meters! Check out their Resourceful Renters segment on Gardening Australia and find out how they make portable wicking pots and a sensational bucket compost system from waste materials. 🪴 Tip: while you can set up the wicking pots this way, just drilling a hole about 10cm from the base and filling the entire bucket with sandy soil/potting mix and compost also does the trick.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dlNpf3O_MsE
The weather is cold but brassicas are… so hot right now. 🔥😁 Especially love the dew and rain drops settling on the leaves. 💧Amazingly your kale, cabbage, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, broccoli and cauliflowers are all the same species (Brassica oleracea). The downside is they can all cross with each other if you’re seed saving. The upside is that if you’re growing cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts, the leaves are basically kale. So don’t miss out on that bonus harvest! 🥦
In our latest case study, meet local gardening legend Shotaro from Altona. He’s a master at making the most of small spaces and setting up gardens on a tiny budget. When he’s not growing much loved Japanese vegetables like edamame, mitsuba, sansho and ashitaba, you’ll find him building incredible compost down at the Altona Community Gardens site in Somers Pde Altona (near Westona train station). Check out the case study on our website (link in profile ☝️🌱)
Sure, you could grow lettuce. But if you’re wishing you planted lettuce a few months ago to beat the record prices, here’s an easy alternative.. Chickweed (Stellaria media) is a common garden weed that was once a popular salad green before lettuce stole the spotlight. It is gloriously lush at this time of year, and maybe you already have a crop ready to pick? Boom! The flavour is mild and pleasantly ‘healthy’. Throw it in a salad mix and I bet no one will notice. Obviously make sure you’ve identified it correctly as there are non-edible lookalikes. Some quick ID tips to get you started are white flowers, clear sap and a small spine of hairs down the stem.
Bananas in Naarm/Melbourne? Yes you can! Here’s Peter’s epic banana bunch on a Dwarf Cavendish banana in Seaholme. Take note of the position – a north facing spot surrounded by brick and concrete to ward off the winter chills. You’ll need lots of water, compost and nitrogen-rich fertiliser (eg. chook poo), plus a bit of patience as it can take three years to fruit this far south.
Trying to balance growing food and looking out for wildlife? 🍎🌳🦇Join us for a free online workshop 7 – 8:30pm on Monday 27 June, introducing you to approaches to combining food and wildlife gardening. It will cover Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and low impact pest management strategies, reducing reliance on synthetic garden chemicals and provide some ideas to help reduce crop losses to wildlife.
Book your free place via our website, link in profile 🌱☝️
Join us for a free online workshop 12:30-1:30pm this Wed 22 June. In this session on the Gardeners Role in Urban Greening and Cooling, we’ll be looking at climate change and the role vegetation plays in cooling our urban environments. Imagine living, working, playing in green spaces as we go about our daily lives. We all have a role to play in creating an urban forest and this session will explain how you can contribute in your own garden. 🌳🌱☀️
Book your free place via our website, link in profile ☝️
Cameras! 🎬 Our talented program participant and local gardening legend Peter from Seaholme as well as My Smart Garden Sustainability Officer Kat will star in Channel Nine News tomorrow night for a feature story on My Smart Garden and growing food at home! 🍓🍊🥦🌽 🍅 A recent My Smart Garden survey showed 89 per cent of survey respondents told us that they felt they benefit financially from the program by reducing food costs and other expenses. 😊
My Smart Garden is a free council-run gardening program that helps residents transform their outdoor spaces – backyards, front yards, balconies, courtyards or pots – into beautiful, productive food and habitat gardens. There are currently more than 6,500 participants in Metro Melbourne. Find out more at our website 👉 www.mysmartgarden.org.au
Ever tried a fresh olive? You only make that mistake once! Harvest time is nearly upon us and we have resources to help you make the most of your backyard harvest. This Wednesday 7-8:30 we’re hosting a free online Preserve Your Backyard Olives workshop so you can try your hand at a few brining methods. And in the works is an opportunity to get your olives pressed into oil as well! Link in profile 🫒☝️🫒
Sugar snap peas are one of the joys of winter! We have a free short online workshop on Your Cool Season Veggie Patch tonight (Thurs 31 March) from 7-8pm. Get some tips on what to plant now, how to prepare your beds and winter management jobs, plus general food garden Q&A. Link in profile ☝️🌱
