Home Harvest

Connect, Grow, Eat, Enjoy

Home Harvest events have always been about community and the celebration and sharing of home grown produce and local food and aim to focus on helping you to start or expand a vegetable patch.

In 2022, Home Harvest sets out to celebrate the local food community in Nillumbik year round with seed libraries, community gardening workshops, food swaps and much more. 

Make sure you save the date for our first ever Community Gardens Open Day on Saturday 19th March(PDF, 95KB), where you'll be able to connect, grow, eat and enjoy with community gardeners across Nillumbik. See below for the range of workshops we have available. 

Do you have a sustainable food event or group you'd like to tell us about? Email environment@nillumbik.vic.gov.au

community gardens map.png

 

Click on the image of the map to view a larger version, or download a PDF copy of our  Community Gardens Map(PDF, 331KB)

 

Community Gardens Open Day 2022

Save the date for our first ever Community Gardens Open Day on Saturday 19 March!
 
Our Community Gardens Open Day provides opportunities to connect, grow, eat and enjoy with community gardeners across Nillumbik.
 
You can download our Community Gardens map and take a self-guided tour of Nillumbik’s gardens in Eltham, Diamond Creek, Greensborough, Hurstbridge, Panton Hill and St Andrews.
 
A number of our Community Gardens will be holding activities on the day.
 

Panton Hill Community Garden
9-11am: chat to volunteers and plant seedlings 

Diamond Valley Library, Greensborough 
10-11am: food swap 
1pm: seed saving workshop

Eltham Living and Learning
10-11.30am: self-guided tour 

Edible Hub, Hurstbridge 
10am-12pm: pest and disease workshop 

Thrive, Diamond Creek 
10am-2pm: food swap and garden tour

Food swaps

What Where When
Diamond Valley Library
Garden of Plenty		 Diamond Valley Library,
Civic Drive,
Greensborough.		 3rd Saturday of the month, 10am-11am
Edible Hub 50 Graysharps Rd,
Hurstbridge		 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month, 10-11am
Thrive Community Garden 31 Watkins Street,
Diamond Creek		 3rd Saturday of the month, 2pm-3pm
Eltham Farmers Market 10-18 Arthur St,
Eltham		 4th Sunday of the month, 9.30am-10.30am
 St Andrews Primary School 25 Caledonia St,
St Andrews 		 3rd Sunday of the month 


Seed libraries

The Home Harvest Seed Libraries are located at:

Nillumbik

  • Eltham Library
  • Diamond Valley Library
  • Edendale Community Farm
  • Hurstbridge Hub

Banyule

  • Rosanna Library
  • Ivanhoe Library and Cultural Hub
  • Watsonia Library
  • Shop48, Heidelberg West

How the Seed Libraries work

Using the seed libraries is easy and follows the simple philosophy of:

  • Take – Visit any of the libraries and take the seeds you would like to grow
  • Grow – Grow the seeds at home and hopefully enjoy a bountiful harvest
  • Save  – Save some seeds for next year from the healthiest plants and fruits
  • Share – Return some of the saved seeds to a Home Harvest Seed Library for the next person to grow

The seed libraries form a network. You can get seeds from any seed library and, when you have some to share, you can give back to any of the locations.

Community gardens in Nillumbik

Community garden Where When Contact 

Eltham Station - Eltham (Incredible Edible Eltham)

Pryor St / Main Rd
Eltham

Open access

guy.palmer1@gmail.com

healthAbility (Incredible Edible Eltham)

917 Main Rd,
Eltham

Open access

guy.palmer1@gmail.com

Chute Street

Seven planter boxes in Chute Street (five on the north side of the road and two on the south side) plus a further two around the corner in Inglis Street.

Open access

guy.palmer1@gmail.com

Edible Hub

50 Graysharps Rd, Hurstbridge

Open access
Drop in session every Thursday 9.30am

ediblehubgarden@gmail.com

Diamond Valley Library - Garden of Plenty

Diamond Valley Library, Civic Drive, Greensborough.

Open access
Working bee every Thursday 10-11am.

DFisher@yprl.vic.gov.au

Eltham Childcare CoOp (Incredible Edible Eltham)

One planter box, 16 Panther Place Eltham

Open access

guy.palmer1@gmail.com

Eltham Living & Learning

Nillumbik Living & Learning Centre, 739 Main Road, Eltham.

By appointment; membership-based (membership free)
volunteers meet weekly on Thursdays 9.30-11am

info.livinglearning@nillumbik.vic.gov.au

Thrive

31 Watkins Street,
Diamond Creek

Membership-based.
Open access on Saturday afternoon 1pm-3pm

peter@travellerspoint.com

Panton Hill Living and Learning

18 Bishops Rd,
Panton Hill

Open access

info.livinglearning@nillumbik.vic.gov.au

How to make your own seed envelopes

We encourage the use of recycled materials for envelopes. For example you can use repurposed books to make origami envelopes for seed storage. 

Please write the following information on your envelopes/packets

  • Plant name
  • Suburb grown
  • Date harvested
  • Any growing notes/tips you have

Here is a simple template to make your own seed envelopes using an A4 piece of paper:

A hand-drawn instruction of how to make an envelope by folding a single piece of paper

Source: https://gardensnorth.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/folding-seed-packets/

If it helps, check with your Home Harvest Seed Library location as some might be happy to take bulk seeds and to package them up for the seed library – but all will prefer it if you can do this yourself.

Donate your extra produce

Local food sharing organisations that accept fresh food donations include (subject to change):

  • Greenhills Neighbourhood House, Community Drive Greensborough -  Open for donations Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays 9am - 1pm
  • Secondbite, Diamond Creek Uniting Church, Cnr Wensley St and Main Hurstbridge Road - Open for donations Friday 11am - 12pm and Saturday 8.30am - 9am
  • BANSIC @ the Hub, 153 Oriel Road, Heidelberg West - Open for donations Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 12pm - 3pm 

Eltham Farmers Market

Eltham Farmers’ Market is held every Sunday, from 8.00am to 12.30pm. 

 On the 4th Sunday of each month, there is a Food Swap from 9.30am to 10.30am. On selected Sundays, there is also a Community Market Stall.

The market is located on the car park at Eltham Town Mall, which is in the centre of Eltham at 10-18 Arthur Street. Entry is free.

The market offers a large range of stalls, from veggies and fruit to condiments and sweet treats. All the stallholders are from within Victoria, with around half from within North East Melbourne (around 15 from Nillumbik and a further 30 from the surrounding municipalities). This is a much higher number of truly local stallholders than at any other farmers’ market in Melbourne. All are selling their own produce. For more information visit Local Food Connect - Eltham Farmers Market 

                     

Join the Home Harvest community

Share your home growing tips and tricks, learn from other local growers and find out about upcoming webinars, workshops and cooking demonstrations at the Home Harvest Community Hub Facebook page.

For any accessibility requirements please contact Councils Environment Project Officer on 9433 3141 or email environment@nillumbik.vic.gov.au to discuss. 

 

Upcoming events

 

 

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