The Northcote Library Food Garden's

Official Launch and Garden Party

Saturday September 3rd from 11am

Please come and celebrate the opening of Northcote's newest community garden with us.

• Melbourne Ukulele Kollective play from 11am.

• Food Swap 11am - 12pm.  Participate in the Urban Harvest swap.  Bring your excess garden produce and swap it for something you don't have!

• Official Launch - 11.15am.  Join Cr Trent McCarthy he launches the garden, the 2011/2012 Backyard Harvest Festival and Darebin's Sustainable Food and Gardening guides.

• Garden Tour and Talk - 11. 45am. Join local permaculturalist and Food Forest expert, Angelo Eliades, to reflect on the 2011 International Year of Forests and the role that Urban Food Forests can play in local food production.

• Children's Gardening Workshop - 12.15pm.  Plant a sunflower, pot your own seedling to take home, visit our garden's busiest workers, the earthworms, and create some garden art.

• Free Gardening Workshops

12.45pm - Seasonal Planting & Preparation   Find out what to plant and how to prepare your garden beds for the Spring season.

         

1.15pm - Fruit Trees for all Seasons How do I plant fruit trees for the best yield? Which trees are best? How do I keep away the yellow leaves and creepy-crawlies? Find out how to keep your fruit trees healthy and productive throughout Spring and Summer.

We would appreciate a RSVP to the Children's Gardening Activities and Workshops.  

Please email northcotelibraryfoodgarden@gmail.com with your name and preferred activity.

Stepping Into Spring

August Working Bee

A small, yet energetic, group of gardeners manned shovels in the glorious sunshine to put into place the garden's pathways.  Gone are the temporary cardboard paths and in their place is a network of tree-trunk 'biscuits' and reclaimed brick paving stepping stones.  All the vegetables and herbs are now within easy arm-reach!  The pavers have been spaced to ensure children can easily wind their way around the beds and adventure through the food forest.

 Can you imagine little feet stepping their way through the fabulous food forest?

The back garden bed path is a mixture of log 'biscuits' and reclaimed bricks

Spring is in the air

Spring is so close we can feel it and there is evidence of the change of season everywhere in this new garden.  The plum and apple trees and the berries are 'waking up' in their new homes and are beginning to bud.  The broad beans and potatoes are shooting and the many perennials we planted in July are growing well.  Whilst some of our seedlings have prematurely gone to seed after being too long in trays, others, including the celery, onions, beetroot, kale and silverbeet, are celebrating the hint of Spring with healthy new growth.   

It is one of our last chances to plant fruit trees and a loquat, pomegranate, dwarf pomegranate, and a cherry guava have all been planted with a good handful of Dynamic Lifter and a Seasol chaser.  Improving the soil in the food forest and future 'berry bed' is an ongoing task, and we were pretty excited to see some earthworms over the weekend, indicating that we are on our way!

Among the more interesting plants in the garden is a spectacular looking and smelling Cuban oregano plant which has gone into the back perennial bed.  It has distinctive fleshy, slightly hairy, pale green leaves with an amazing minty-menthol aroma.  Apparently it has many culinary and medicinal uses.  See if you can find it when you visit the garden!

Some yacon tubers have also gone into the garden.  Yacon are also known as 'apples of the earth' or Peruvian ground apples and have crisp, sweet taste.  From the three tubers planted we should expect to harvest up to ten kilograms of yacon next Autumn.  More information about yacon can be found at Yacon - Green Harvest.

The First Winter

The First Planting Day

Our first planting day was a great success.  The sun shone brilliantly all day and the Winter gardeners, visitors and Friends of the Garden managed to complete a mass planting out, as well as learn a great deal from the experts present.  We were gifted with a large number of plant donations and the NLFG thanks its supporters including John Pinnegar, Peppertree Place Coburg, Angelo Eliades and Bunnings Preston, as well as countless individuals who donated cuttings and seedlings.

Pathways marked out ready for planting

Plum trees in the Food Forest

The back garden bed.  Look at all those plants!

Watering in at the end of the day

The Winter Season

Despite the slow growing season, planting out a new garden in Winter has provided an excellent opportunity to plant bare-rooted fruit trees, berry canes and root crops, and to establish perennial ornamentals and edibles in new homes.

The Food Forest has taken great shape under the direction of Angelo Eliades of Deep Green Permaculture.  Three plum trees (Santa Rosa, D’Agen and Donsworth), three apples, and a mulberry tree now stand as the forest canopy, with a dwarf mandarin, berries (raspberries, currents and a jostaberry), and scented and companion plants forming the mid-layer.  Ground covers include wild (alpine) strawberries, lettuce, Asian greens, herbs and violets.

The Food Forest Plan - Angelo Eliades

Winter edible planting throughout the garden includes strawberries, potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, tat soi, bok choi, Chinese cabbage, kale, silverbeet and rainbow chard, garlic, onions, leek, spring onions, edible cannas, lettuce varieties, mustard, parsley, coriander, watercress, dill, Warrigal greens, Jerusalem artichoke, rhubarb, nasturtium and broad beans.

Companion, scented and flowering plants form an important part of the garden and a third of the front garden bed has been planted with a variety of plants including lavender, daisy varieties, calendula, cornflower, hollyhock, salvia varieties, as well as some native ground covers and shrubs.  These plants are dotted throughout the seasonal beds as well and will act as bee forage, attract beneficial insects to the garden and act as ‘helpers’ to our fruit and vegetable varieties.

August in the Garden

• Trellis will be erected for the berries in the Food Forest, an additional berry bed and for a planned passion fruit plant near the water tank. 
• Pathway construction awaits some enthusiastic volunteers!  Stepping stones will criss-cross the garden beds and the Food Forest and will allow for easy access to plants.  We plan to construct these paths from reclaimed and re-purposed materials, such as bricks and timber.
• Succession planting will be an ongoing task in the garden and the back garden bed has been planned to ensure there will be food to harvest every month from the garden.
• Growers will begin to propagate seed for the coming Spring season this month and we’re hoping to grow some interesting heritage/heirloom varieties.

The Darebin Council Sow What When brochure is helping to inform us of suitable planting times as well as the plants that do and do not get along together!

The next planting and working bee day is on Saturday August 20^th from 10am.

About the Garden

About the Garden
The Northcote Library Food Garden has been developed by the City of Darebin as part of its sustainable food program. A community consultation process began in late April 2011 and the first community planting day was held in July.

The garden is managed by a committed group of residents for the benefit of the community. It will become a productive growing space, as well as a place for gathering, for education and for demonstrating sustainable gardening practices. The Northcote Library Food Garden joins an exciting array of sustainability and gardening projects and networks operating in the inner-Northern suburbs of Melbourne.


The garden features two large communal growing beds, which have been planted out with annual and perennial edible plants, as well as a variety of companion and beneficial plants. In addition, a Food Forest is taking great shape in an additional bed. The Food Forest follows the principles of other forests, with a canopy, mid-layer and ground covers, however, the Food Forest’s layers are made up of fruit trees, and edible shrubs, berries and herbs. Children will love stepping along the forest pathway through the fruit trees, searching for berries to munch on!


The garden has been established as a communal plot in order to maximize growing space. It will function using a communal planting and harvest model. A monthly planting, harvest and working bee day will take place, with gardeners committing a further 1-2 hours a week of their available time. On the community days, the available harvest will be shared with those present, and gardeners are welcome to harvest a reasonable share of anything that is ready to pick at any other time. The garden will be chemical-free and operate using broad permaculture and organic principles.


Future plans for the garden include establishing a native plants and bush food area and growing a children’s sensory garden. Gardening workshops are planned as part of broad educational aims for the garden.


The Northcote Library Food Garden is open for members of the public to enjoy and it is hoped that it will become a place where the community can meet, children can explore and people can learn about growing their own food.

Becoming Involved with the Garden

Community members are invited to become involved with the garden, either as a Friend of the Garden or as a Gardener.  Please register your interest and join our mailing list by emailing the garden: northcotelibraryfoodgarden@gmail.com


Donations of plants are always welcome.

Project update

Here is where the project is up to.

 

•  The community consultation began in March and progressed well
•  The community consultation is now complete with plans having been drawn and redrawn a number of times as the consultation shaped the design and process
•  The community were given a chance to vote on a plan they most preferred and the plans were finalised
•  Tenders were sent out six contractors 
•  A contractor was selected using the Darebin councils tender evaluation process
•  No underground services were located in the area of the garden contrary to information supplied by Dial Before You Dig
•  Site works began on Thursday the 16th June
•  Works are currently on track for completion by June 30th 
•  A 10k ltr tank and pump have been installed on site, catchment off the library roof
•  Gardeners have formed a management committee and are in the process of developing their rules and guidelines for the use of the space
•  A blogspot has been created
•  The handover from project worker to the community garden management committee will happen in the next few weeks
•  Standby for info on the Next community garden meeting!  

Construction begins!

Updated site photos