Case Studies

We’re My Smart Garden regulars! We always check the monthly newsletter to find out what to plant and what’s coming up. The events are always a great outing. We love to meet people, see how they do things and have a chat. There was an event at Altona Community Garden recently, and we learned how to make pickles and kimchi and prune our olive tree, and walked away with seeds, plants, lemons and lemongrass cuttings. We were given some bean seeds at one of the first events we ever attended and we’re still growing and saving them today.

Gardening makes us happy. It’s challenging when you start, but it can give you piece of mind and relaxation. If you spend an hour or two in the garden, you forget about everything. We have herbs, veggies, fruit and flowers, and it’s very convenient to have everything on hand. Any scraps and leftovers go to our rabbits and chickens. You have to share with birds, possums and diseases, but it’s so rewarding to eat something you’ve grown yourself and we wouldn’t exchange it for anything.

Last year we participated in Olives to Oil and received 20L oil for our share of the community olive pressing. Previously we would harvest for pickling and giving away, but there’s only so many you could eat so the rest went to waste. We couldn’t justify taking our olives to a commercial press when it would cost three times more than the oil is worth, so the crop was worthless. Olive oil is now very expensive to buy and it’s especially valuable to be able to press our own. People now value their trees and know they have to look after them to make the oil.

Olives have always been central in our culture. Nancy grew up on a farm and Frank’s family had an olive oil factory, and our relatives back in Calabria still have many trees that are hundreds of years old with twisted trunks. Olives were for pickling and eating through the winter and for olive oil all year, and the extra oil was sold to buy things you couldn’t grow. So it’s a huge thing for the Greek and Italian communities to be able to press our olives. Our families and neighbours are all saying ‘when is it happening?’ and the word of mouth has created real excitement! We were also impressed with the Middle Eastern community who had even more olives than us! It’s something everyone can relate to because it brings back good memories of our upbringing. When the family comes around you can say ‘This is my oil’.

Now the foundation is there we hope Olives to Oil will continue. It’s a lovely community event with a fantastic atmosphere and we can’t think of any other activity that brings together so many cultures and starts so many conversations. A lot of European cities have orchards that people can harvest. Who knows, maybe we could plant a community olive grove in the future?