Supporting you to grow food

Yearly Archives: 2016

Hoverflies are in big numbers across Melbourne right now. They are eating aphids. — I bet most of you have noticed huge numbers of hoverflies in the garden recently? Hoverflies look like small bees and they are one of the most beneficial insects to have in the garden. I’ve spent ages watching them in the garden this week. Their larvae are incredible the way […]

Hoverfly populations have exploded across Melbourne to control aphids!

This entry was posted in Garden Pests on October 20, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

How to control earwigs in Melbourne Gardens — Earwigs are the great decomposers of the garden. Sometimes though, they decompose things that we don’t want them to… like our seedlings! Earwigs are common unwanted visitors to most gardens in Melbourne. They can be quite prevalent in October, which is coincidentally, the time that many of us are looking […]

How to control earwigs in the garden

This entry was posted in Garden Pests on October 4, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Urban Farming and Edible Garde Maintenance Hawthorn Melbourne — Leaf, Root & Fruit are again on the lookout for a like-minded individual, who is ready to join our team in inspiring and supporting our community of growers. This is a fantastic opportunity for an enthusiastic team player, keen to share the excitement in encouraging the development of sustainable, edible […]

We’re Hiring Again!

This entry was posted in Job Vacancies on August 21, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Measuring Brix in Vegetables Melbourne — My past life as a Scientist, will always be with me, and so I am embracing my inner nerd with our latest project. We talk about home grown food being tastier and healthier. This is mainly due to the assumption, that chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides, used in large […]

Using a Refractometer to measure nutrient density of fruit and ...

This entry was posted in Projects on July 4, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Soil Experiment Melbourne Soil Types Bunnings Potting Mix — Ask someone to draw a tree and often you’ll get something looking a bit like this. But that’s only half of the picture. Usually, more than half of a plant exists underground. Yet, as gardeners we often neglect this fact and ignore the most important aspect of gardening… the soil! […]

Experiment: The Importance of Soil

This entry was posted in Projects on May 31, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

European Wasp Melbourne — Last week I posted about controlling the damage caused by White Cabbage Moths in the garden. Since then, I’ve gone from removing ten to twenty caterpillars a day from the garden, to now only finding one or two. However, this rapid decrease in numbers has not been entirely due to […]

European Wasp…. Friend or Foe?

This entry was posted in Garden Pests on May 23, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Autumn planting melbourne white cabbage moth — As I mentioned in our recent newsletter, this autumn I’ve noticed a lot more White Cabbage Butterfly (Pieris rapae) in our gardens than usual. White Cabbage Butterfly lay their eggs on our Brassicas, such as broccoli and cauliflower. Little green caterpillars hatch from these eggs, and then get to work […]

How to Control White Cabbage Butterfly in the Garden

This entry was posted in Garden Pests on May 11, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show 2016 — On Wednesday Leaf, Root & Fruit only worked a half day and spent the afternoon visiting the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. As always, the Achievable Gardens were the highlight. Students from Melbourne Polytechnic, Swinburne, Holmesglen and University of Melbourne were challenged to create small, stylish and functional gardens. […]

Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show 2016

This entry was posted in Events on March 18, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Urban Farming and Edible Garde Maintenance Hawthorn Melbourne — UPDATE 13/03/16: We were sent an impressive array of applications that included videos, photos and plenty of interesting (and some very amusing) answers to our three questions. It’s fantastic to see that so many people are enthusiastic, supportive and keen to be a part of what we do. We had […]

Urban Farmer Required!

This entry was posted in Job Vacancies on February 3, 2016 by Leaf, Root & Fruit