Blog
Our blog features a variety of gardening and sustainablity articles on topics such as soil biology, composting, grafting, pruning, water-saving and irrigation clean energy, waste and biodiversity. 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.
Start now to prevent brown rot of stone fruit in Spring!
Start now to prevent brown rot of stone fruit in Spring! Top tips: Remove all fruit including mummified fruit Clean out crotches Remove all vegetative material beneath trees Spray up to 4 times before buds open and leaves appear Brown rot of stone fruit is the scourge...
Electrify Everything – starting at home
The fall in prices for solar panels is good news for those wanting to electrify their home and reduce their power bills. A report by Climate Energy Finance predicts a 10% drop in the cost of panels, helping make solar installation more affordable. According to the...
The Burning Question
We may love a cosy winter fire at home, and enjoy the cheer, warmth, and of course, the pizza, when we fire up the pizza oven at the community garden, but we do need to be aware of best practice when burning and whether our wood comes from a sustainable and legal...
Sandra Macneil receives OAM in King’s Birthday Honours!
Sustainable Macleod is excited to announce that Sandra Macneil was the recipient of an Order of Australia Medal in the King's Birthday Honours: 'For service to the community of Greensborough through a range of roles.' Sandra has been recognised for over 40 years...
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...
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...
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.