Blog
Our blog features a variety of gardening and growing tips on topics such as soil biology, wicking bed construction, composting, grafting, pruning, water-saving and irrigation. Plus we regularly post recipes to help you make the most of the ‘seasonal glut’ and tips on how to live in a more sustainable way.
July garlic hint
July is an easy month! All you need to do is keep your garlic weed free, netted to prevent cockatoo strike and watered if there is insufficient rain. If you did not enrich your soil prior to planting, give each row a side dressing of blood and bone but if you did,...
Dealing with suckers!
For the health of fruit trees, it is important to remove suckers at pruning time. Suckers are the shoots that grow from the rootstock beneath the graft on fruit trees. Most fruit trees are grafted, sometimes having several grafts on the one tree. The rootstock is a...
Love your gadgets? – let’s recycle the batteries that power them!
Love your gadgets? – let’s recycle the batteries that power them! As the world shifts towards renewable energy, our search for the best battery storage technology has galloped along. Our appetite for cordless gadgets and portable things has also grown in ways we could...
8 cool things about mosses
Until recently I’ve never paid mosses much attention. I’m ashamed to admit I remember peeling blankets of moss off rocks as a kid and building imaginary fairy villages with them. Lately though, I’ve been appreciating their beauty as they reappear in the bush and...
What is a sustainable community? Part 2
What is a sustainable communityPart 2: Inclusion, diversity and belonging Last month I used Sustainable Macleod as an example of an organisation seeking to assist the development of a sustainable community. In this article, I want to dig a little deeper, into what a...
Pruning and care of fruit trees
Pruning and care of fruit trees First published in July 2022 Top tips follow the timetable below for individual fruit trees prune on a warm, dry day, especially for apricots and cherries avoid using wound healing sprays remove suckers avoid Bordeaux mix and use lime...
What to plant in June in Melbourne
Late in June begin planting seeds in punnets for early spring planting in late August/September. Succession plant some winter seedlings so that they will be available when your first crop finishes and carry you through to the time when spring vegetables are ready. It...
Urgent jobs in the garden for June
Make compost. Collect autumn leaves to make leaf litter or to add to compost. Mow the leaves before using. Add sparingly to compost as too much in a layer causes matting. Mix leaves well with other ingredients to prevent this. Net brassicas and Asian greens with...
June garlic hint
There is not much to do for garlic in June - it is now too late to plant it. Presuming you have weeded, mulched and watered your patch, you have done all you need to. Now it is time to wait until the shortest day after which garlic heads will develop. Garlic is...
Compost activators, accelerators, starters, boosters, inoculators – do you need to pay for them?
First, let's define what terms like activators and accelerators mean. This is not easy because most people, including commercial manufacturers of such products, use these terms interchangeably and do not define what they mean. Manufacturers do not detail the actual...
Microbats: nature’s answer to mosquito control
I grew up in a mud brick and recycled timber house with inevitable little gaps in lots of places. Maybe it’s unsurprising then that I have grown to love our native microbats. We had one flying around inside after dark at least a couple of times every year. When I was...
What is a sustainable community? Part 1
As we approach the Annual General Meeting, it is timely to revisit the concept of a sustainable community and Sustainable Macleod's purpose and place in the community. The name 'Sustainable Macleod' was chosen for our organisation to indicate that our purpose was to...
Silverbeet, spinach, Swiss chard, rainbow chard… what is the difference?
Top planting tips: prepare soil to a fine tilth soak silverbeet/chard seed but not spinach seed add compost or well-rotted manure keep well watered Silverbeet, spinach, Swiss chard and rainbow chard all belong to the Amaranthaceae family but they are not all the same....
Polystyrene Waste
From bean bags to waterways – why polystyrene has to be eradicated from our lives. In the early 1970s, my family had two orange bean bags. They were very fashionable items at the time, and besides the allure of lounging in them, I loved unzipping the bags and plunging...
Join Sustainable Macleod
Become a member and get access to the community garden, the tool library and our seed library. We welcome all members of the community and have regular events and workshops to enjoy.