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 wastes.
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.
events
Connect with us for seasonal advice, tips and tricks. Get your questions answered and share garden pics with our community.
Been on any night patrols of your patch lately? You might be surprised how many critters are active when their predators (ie. birds) are asleep! Earwigs, slugs, snails and some caterpillars will be making their presence known at this time of year, and knowing who is responsible for the damage will help you plan a safe and effective response.
Here’s a clever trick for small space gardening from My Smart Garden participant @danbreves. This tiny walled courtyard garden is getting a little extra sunshine thanks to sneaky mirror placement! Mirrors and light coloured walls or temporary panels really boost plant growth over the darker months. Silverbeet, mustards, rocket, parsley, mint and Lebanese land cress are all good choices for shadier spaces. Thanks for sharing this tip Daniel! 🌱💡🌱💡🌱
What is an heirloom vegetable anyway? Heirlooms are things of value handed down from one generation to the next, so heirloom vegetables are valuable, local varieties passed between gardeners and farmers. This gorgeous ‘Green Macerata Cauliflower is an Italian heirloom (now growing happily in a Melbourne suburban garden). There are still a few places in our Heirloom Seed Saving workshop this Saturday - book via our website (link in profile 👆). Thanks for the question @dianafvidovic! 🥦🥕🥒🥬🌽🍅
Want edible olives even faster? Now this is fun! Get yourself an empty beer stubby (or other bottle with a concave base) and use it to smash the olives. Not smash them to smithereens, but squash just to split them open a bit. You’re loosening the stone which will make the curing process even faster.
This is the final in our olive preserving posts from @mygreengarden - check back through the feed for other low-effort options and advice on how to put them under brine to cure 👍
Biodiversity is the theme for this year’s World Environment Day, and to mark the occasion we’re putting on a workshop to help you safeguard our agricultural biodiversity through seed saving. It’s an online event 10 - 11:30 am Saturday 6 June. Head on over to our website to book your place (link in profile 👆)
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Downside of cabbage white butterfly-proof netting is finding predators like this preying mantis looking for a way in! You can never do just one thing in a garden ecosystem 🌱🐛🦋🐌🐞🐜🕷🕸🌱
Did you catch these local legends on Gardening Australia? Rabea and Steve from Altona are growing all their greens and herbal teas in a garden that is totally portable in only 4 square meters! Check out the Resourceful Renter story (Series 31 Episode 11) to find out how you can do the same! 🌱🌱🌱 https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/resourceful-renter/12155080
Here’s another way to cure your #olives. If you make a slit (or two!), this helps the bitter components leach out more quickly. Basically the more effort you put into prepping the olives, the faster they will cure and be ready for you to eat! Thanks to @mygreengardenau for this video, produced as part of our recent Backyard Olives event. There’s a link to the recording in our May eNewsletter if you missed it! 🌳
Wanna design your own edible oasis? A thoughtful garden design means better results with less effort. Join us this Saturday 16 May as we explore the process of permaculture design in a typical suburban garden. We’ll work out our host's goals and wishlist, learn how to do a site analysis, talk about design considerations like sun, wind, water, access and plants and sketch up a design for a low maintenance productive garden. This is a free online event for Melbourne gardeners, bookings essential (link in profile ☝️) 🐓🌱🍇🌞💧🌳🍅🥑
Not sure if you have enough space at home to start growing your own food? We think you do!
In our next online event we’ll help you find clever workarounds for your space constraints so you can start pumping out your own home grown goodies.
Head on over to our website (link in profile 👆) to book your place now 🌱🥬🥦🌶🍅🍊🌱
How do you know if an olive is ready for harvest? When they’re green they can be pickled BUT wait until you see some olives on your tree starting to change colour to purple. This means the green ones are mature enough to pick. Special thanks to Maria (@mygreengardenau) for our recent Backyard Olives workshop!
We’re running a free live Food Gardening Q&A event for Melbourne gardeners this Saturday! Still a few places available so head over to our website (link in profile👆) to book. 🥦🌱🌧💧🐓🍁🍊🥬🥑
Autumn is a peak breeding period for slugs and snail which coincided with a major planting time. Our favourite ways to manage these pests are: 1) Handpicking them off plants at night - especially after rain or watering. Feed to poultry if you’ve got em! 2) Checking hiding places regularly and/or setting traps. Upturned plastic plant pots near seedlings work well. 3) Setting beer traps which attract slugs and snails. We use a jar lying on an angle with a few cm of beer. 4) Protecting young seedlings with homemade cloches until they are big enough to survive a few bites. Cut the neck off 2L plastic juice bottles and put base over each seedling.
If you do resort to snail bait, make sure it’s the safer version with iron as the active ingredient.
Thanks for the question Kerry!
The simplest way to cure olives. Curing olives gets rid of their bitter components. This simple method will cure them as well as preserving them for long term use, which is lucky because it really is a slow process. Pack the washed olives into a sterilised jar, top with a 10% salt brine solution, place a slice of lemon over the top and then put a film of olive oil over the top. Put your lid on securely and then wait – up to 2 years! Thanks to @mygreengardenau for sharing this video as part of our online Backyard Olives workshop last weekend. We’ll share more (and faster!) methods soon ☺️🌳
You might think of insects as a problem, but these tiny creatures (yes, even the annoying ones!) have critical roles as pollinators, pest controllers, and food for larger animals like bats, lizards and birds. With recent studies showing a global decline in insect populations, you can support insects by: avoiding insecticides, replacing lawn with more biodiverse plantings, growing flowers (especially those with small flowers like the dill pictured), turning off outdoor lights, leaving wild areas of your garden to allow breeding and buying food that is grown without pesticides.
Bathtubs make excellent garden beds, not to mention worm farms! This one is a wicking (self-watering) bed with a layer of scoria/gravel in the bottom quarter followed by a shadecloth layer and then sandy soil mix. You can avoid drilling an overflow hole by attaching and sealing a piece of pipe to the drain hole at the desired overflow height. Thanks for the question @dharanya_arun06 🙏🌱
