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Compost thermometer being used to measure soil temperature. Early spring planting — Long term readers will know that I live in Kyneton, a town in Central Victoria. The winters here are cold, with heavy frosts. Our summers are much hotter than in Melbourne and very dry. The growing season for summer vegetables is short in my garden. Local gardeners know better than […]

Early Spring Planting. A Fool’s Garden?

This entry was posted in Experiments Projects on September 28, 2023 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Soil conditioners for vegetable gardens Melbourne — Our “grow trials” are proving very popular with local gardeners. In the past, we have trialled different potting mixes and also different chemical and liquid fertilizers. This summer we have trialled some different soil conditioners available to all of our gardeners. We focussed on options that are relatively easy to […]

Plant Soil Conditioner Trial

This entry was posted in Experiments Projects on March 6, 2019 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

District Docklands Community Garden Design — District Docklands (formerly known as the Harbour Town precinct) has created a new community garden. Leaf, Root & Fruit is proud to work with the District Docklands team and Development Victoria to design and implement a productive, aesthetic and exciting space for children and their families enjoyment. Address: Corner of […]

District Docklands Children’s Community Garden

This entry was posted in Projects on November 1, 2017 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Which Bunnings Fertilizer is Best? — This summer we conducted an experiment to test the performance of a range of potting mixes. While setting that experiment up, we expanded it to investigate a range of “off-the-shelf” fertilizers (mostly certified organic ones). For those of us limited to major hardware chains and local nurseries, these are often […]

Which Commercial Fertilizer is Best?

This entry was posted in Projects on May 1, 2017 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Harbour Town Docklands Apple Crate Herb and Veggie Patch Melbourne — Lately we’ve been spending some time at the Harbour Town precinct at Docklands where there’s some big changes in the pipeline. Residents, shoppers and visitors to the centre have all been excited by the arrival of our temporary pop-up-patches. The apple-crate pop up patches have been placed throughout the centre […]

Harbour Town, Docklands Pop-Up-Patch

This entry was posted in Projects on April 14, 2017 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Which Potting Mix is Best? Melbourne — When people try to grow plants in containers, one of the most common pitfalls that I see, is the use of poor quality soil, or potting mix. Last summer we conducted a small experiment to demonstrate the importance of soil in growing great veggies. We produced some very interesting results […]

Which Potting Mix is Best?

This entry was posted in Projects on April 3, 2017 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

Last summer, we undertook a project to grow a giant edible trellis. Many of you followed the project quite closely and I know that some of you are going to be trying, something similar for yourselves this summer. With that in mind, I’ve put together this blog post, with a […]

Giant Edible Trellis – Lessons Learned

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on September 13, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

REA Group Edible Garden Wicking Beds — REA Group Limited is a multinational, digital advertising company, specialising in property. They’ve come a long way since starting out 20 years ago in a garage in Doncaster, in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne REA Group operates Australia’s leading residential and commercial property websites, realestate.com.au and realcommercial.com.au. They have diversified […]

REA Group and their Office-based Edible Garden

This entry was posted in Projects on August 5, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

It’s been 28 weeks since we built the Giant Edible Trellis and this week we harvested the last of the produce. We harvested two large potimarron pumpkins, a few more zucchini tromboncino and the massive new guinea bean, from the trellis. There was a small moon and stars watermelon fruit, […]

Giant Edible Trellis Week 28: The Final Harvest

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis How to Grow on April 17, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Gardiner Preschool Glen Iris — Gardiner Preschool in Glen Iris has a long history of growing their vegetables. The children are valued as decision makers and caretakers of the vegetable gardens. They decide and vote on what to plant. Strawberries, tomatoes, beans, peas, pumpkins, corn, beetroot, lettuce and potatoes are all favourites. The Gardiner Pre-schoolers […]

Gardiner Preschool Community Herb Garden

This entry was posted in Projects on April 13, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

It’s been 26 weeks since we started our Giant Edible Trellis Project. That’s half a year! The time has flown, but we’ve had buckets of produce from this small space. Our tromboncino plants are still producing dozens of fruit. The new guinea beans are also quite prolific. The large new […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Twenty-Six

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on March 31, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Coriander seed is ready for collecting — The winner of the race to the top of the trellis was the new guinea bean. I’ve never grown them before, and I’m quickly finding out how rampant they are. Not only is the main vine growing quicker than any of the other crops, but the lateral (side) shoots are […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Twenty-Two… New Guinea Beans

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on February 19, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Zucchini Tromboncino — The race is on! One of the Potimarron Pumpkin vines looked as if it was on track to be the first to reach the top of the trellis, but in the last week, it has been overtaken by the New Guinea Bean vines. The New Guinea Bean has soft, feathery […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Nineteen… Tromboncinos!

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on January 30, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

The snow peas have not handled the recent heat, or the wind very well. They were prolific croppers early on, but are now starting to die back. The good news is that the runner beans are starting to pick up where the snow peas have left off. In some parts […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Sixteen

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on January 9, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

The giant edible trellis project suffered a bit of a set-back this week with the huge winds we had on Tuesday evening. The snow peas were all battered and torn away from the trellis. We’ve tied them back and hopefully they’ll quickly bounce back. We’ve been inundated with snow peas […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Thirteen

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on December 17, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Things are getting very busy for Leaf, Root & Fruit in the lead up to Christmas. In the two weeks since I’ve been out to Mum’s, the Giant Edible Trellis Project reached another milestone… our first snow pea harvest! The trellis project now has the ability to supply the family […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Eleven, The Snow Peas are ...

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on December 2, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve been out to Mum’s place, and checked on the Giant Edible Trellis. In that time the project has really kicked along. We sowed the third and final phase of seeds back in week seven. The following varieties were planted: Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck Pumpkin […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Nine, Our First Harvest!

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on November 20, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Week seven already! The rain we’ve had during the last week has been fantastic for the garden, but the sparrows and earwigs have not been so good. We’ve even spotted a pesky rabbit around the yard on some evenings. It hasn’t found the tender, tasty goodness growing along the base […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Seven, Pumpkins, Tromboncinos and New ...

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on November 5, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Many of the cucumber seeds that we sowed in week four, emerged this week. Unfortunately the sparrows have already taken their toll. Some of them are damaged, and others ripped out of the ground completely. The beans continue to be ravaged by both sparrows and earwigs. We expected this, and […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Six, Giant Tree Tomatoes

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on October 30, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Week Five of the Giant Edible Garden Trellis Project was a quiet one. The snow peas and beans are all between 5 and 10cm high. They’ll soon start climbing the trellis. I’ve noticed that a few of the beans and snow peas have had some pests bothering them. Most likely […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Five

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on October 23, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

It’s already week four of the Giant Edible Trellis Project and things are starting to take shape.The flower bed has a fairly thick covering of small seedlings all over it. The snow peas and beans are now well established, although for some reason they are slightly thinner in the […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Four, Cucumber and Watermelon Seeds

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on October 16, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Many of the seeds we planted in the previous two weeks germinated in week three of the Edible Trellis Project. The snow peas had started poking through late in week two. This week they are joined by the beans.The flower bed is showing signs of life with several sunflower seeds […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Three

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on October 8, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Week two of the Edible Trellis Project was a quiet one compared to the previous week. We’re waiting for the beans and peas to germinate and establish prior to phase two of planting. The snow peas are just starting to push through the soil 10 days after sowing. Companion Plants […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week Two, Flower Power and Herb ...

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on September 30, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

Building the Giant Edible Trellis Frame We built our trellis frame using old steel water pipe. We twitched it together with fencing wire and stabilised the three A-frames using star pickets. A final test that it would be strong enough, was to swing on each of the A-frames. We’re happy […]

Giant Edible Trellis Project: Week One, Set-up of trellis and ...

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on September 24, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

We all know that trellises are great for maximising our use of space by growing plants vertically. Quite often they are used in edible gardening for growing cucumbers, beans, peas and other vine veggies. I’ve come across a few images on Pinterest that have inspired me to get out in […]

Vertical Gardening on a Giant Edible Trellis: Our latest project

This entry was posted in Giant Edible Trellis on September 19, 2014 by Leaf, Root & Fruit