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.
COVID-19 - we're here for you
My Smart Garden partner Councils are taking a precautionary approach to the coronavirus (COVID 19) spread and we have cancelled all non-essential face-to-face external programs. The health and safety of our community members is our number one priority.
While our face-to-face events have ceased during the pandemic, we are stepping up our online support and offering free online workshops and our newsletters will continue so you can still access reliable, free sustainable gardening advice tailored to Melbourne, and to connect with other local gardeners.
Featured Event
Home made sodas from your garden
Learn how to make healthy fermented fizzy drinks from backyard honey, fruit and herbs just in time for sipping in the shade through summer!
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.
Grafting is a brilliant way to pack more diversity into your home orchard as well as improving pollination and spreading out your harvest. This one is Bramley’s Seedling - one of England’s favourite cooking apples, growing on a Rome Beauty apple. The red is a bit of wax (reused cheese wax) used to prevent moisture loss 👍🌱🌳
Carrots after first thinning to about an inch apart. This’ll be a good spacing for the early baby ones, and the rest will be thinned again to 5cm apart once they get a little bigger. Young carrot tops make delish pesto too 🌱
Nothing more delicious in spring than a handful of snow peas ☺️ These are growing on the southern edge of my veggie bed, politely minding their own business while the rest of the bed was reset and seeded to carrots. Not a heavy yielder but worth it for the transitional crop between plantings. Eating the shoots as well to bump up the harvest! 👍🌱
🌱 Win $100 of free plants! 🌱
We are working to improve the My Smart Garden and we want to hear from you! You could win one of 10 vouchers to a local nursery to the value of $100 just by taking our survey. Your feedback will provide us with valuable insights, help us improve your experience of My Smart Garden and shape our future events and programs. Terms and Conditions apply. Link in profile 🐝
Quail lending a helping hand getting the veggie beds ready for spring plantings. They’re doing a great job vacuuming up earwigs, slugs and snails as well as fertilising the soil. Also pecking at weeds and last season’s crops.. all while having a rather lovely day out - lots of sunbaking and dust bathing going on too ☺️🐦🐣
Tomatoes only a few weeks away from planting out! 🍅 These will be thinned down to the strongest in each punnet. Growing Tommy Toe, Black Cherry, Juane Flamme, Red Fig, Black Beauty and Broad Ripple Yellow Currant. What are your fav varieties for Melbourne?
Sprouting broccoli just keeps going after you’ve picked the central head. That is.. as long as you keep harvesting and don’t let it flower. So broc is definitely on the menu today and we’ll be eating these tender leaves and stems as well. Got any favourite recipes? 🥦🥦🥦
Oh hello little tomatoes! 🌱🍅 These babies have germinated indoors and will now get outdoor daytime excursions in the sunshine while keeping cosy indoors at night 🌞 In warm inner-city Melbourne you’ll get a month of extra tomatoes if you start them early in a warm microclimate, plus they are more robust by the time summer pests take hold 👍 (NB: this is for indeterminate, continuously fruiting types rather than determinate that crop all at once)
A lovely green cauliflower ready to be harvested. We’ll cook up the young tender leaves too, and large old leaves will go to our very appreciative flock of quails. Got any more tips for making the most of your homegrown veg? We’d love to hear them 🥦🥦🥦
Did your peach or nectarine suffer from peach leaf curl last summer? Now is your last chance to spray with a copper or sulphur fungicide. Once these buds have burst it’s too late! As usual a preventative approach is best, so keep your trees strong by focusing on soil health (hint: good soil moisture, compost and mulch!). Check out the recording of our popular Know Your Soils workshop on our website - link in profile ☺️🌳🍑
Clear, sunny days in winter are perfect for pruning, so the cuts can dry out and reduce the risk of fungal infection, but remember that pruning at this time of year tends to stimulate growth in spring. So when your trees are filling their allocated space, try to do most of the pruning in summer after harvest. That’ll calm the trees down and encourage production of more fruit and less unwanted branches and shoots 🌱🌳🍎
How’s your winter patch? (Are you sick of kale and chokos yet? 😁) At our place the caulis finally emerging, daikon and cabbages sizing up. What’s your best winter brassica recipe?
Love these DIY wicking buckets! Get to know some local restaurants and you’ll probably have a free lifetime supply of these food grade plastic buckets. They’re a good size for one or two silverbeet plants. Easy to move around - either into sun and shade at your place depending on the season, or to your next rental property! 🥗🌱👍
Need to empty a worm farm but *every* layer is full of worms? 🙄 You can empty the contents onto a tarp in the sun, then gradually scrap away 5-10cm layers. The worms (most of them anyway!) will slowly move away from the sunlight and you’ll end up with a seething mass at the bottom ready to be gently ushered back into the box..
Now that the weather is getting cooler it’s tempting to stop watering your food garden, but just because there are droplets on the leaves doesn’t mean there’s enough water down in the soil where it counts! Check by poking your finger in around the root zone and if doesn’t feel damp then it’s time to water 💦
