Event recap

Grower Site Visit- Dumbalk

On Sunday 29th March, Grow Lightly hosted a sold out event, a site visit to Julie's property in Dumbalk to see how she grows fruit and vegetables which are available in the Grow Lightly weekly online shop; And at the monthly Farmer's Market stall held at Coal Creek on the 2nd Saturday of each month where Julie and the team sell directly to Grow Lightly customers.

Julie moved to the property in late 2020, the site was very overgrown and only a few established fruit and nut trees were dotted amongst a lot of agapanthus.

She has turned the property into a thriving and productive food garden, growing enough to regularly help to feed her community.

Attendees were guided from outside the residence to the different growing areas, the property is roughly a quarter of an acre amongst farmland in Dumbalk.

Julie is growing her first bananas currently, with the plant against a tin shed with a good amount of sunlight, a neighbouring Tamarillo shrub with a very lovely shape is growing well in that area of the garden also and currently bearing fruit.

The tamarillo (Solanum betaceum) is a tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Solanaceae (the nightshade family). It bears an egg-shaped edible fruit.

source - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarillo

Most of the attendees have tried Tamarillo fruit before, and a good tip for those that didn't love the flavour the first time was to try them stewed, or as a chutney.

"Tamarillos were first introduced into New Zealand from Asia in the late 1800’s.  Originally only yellow and purple-fruited strains were produced.  The red tamarillo was developed in the 1920’s by an Auckland nurseryman from seed from South America. Although tamarillos are from South America, the name is not Spanish, but a New Zealand invention. The fruit was originally known as tree tomato, but to avoid confusion with the common tomato, and increase appeal to export customers, the New Zealand Tree Tomato Promotions Council decided to rename it. Council member W. Thompson came up with ‘tamarillo’, claiming it sounded both Māori and Spanish. The new name was officially adopted on 1 February 1967."

source- https://www.tamarillo.com/history

The tour continued past a wind break of flowering gums, and on to the pumpkin patch where Julie is growing a mix of cucurbits such as Red Kuri Pumpkin, Butternuts, (and in a different area she's growing spaghetti squash pictured above), as well as zucchini and also the odd purple congo potato plant which seem to pop up in her garden. We chatted about how fun the purple potatoes can be when cooked too, they make a beautiful mashed potato or potato salad as they still retain some of the colour after cooking.

Behind the pumpkin patch area is a young orchard along a fence line, and Julie pointed out the chestnut tree and apple tree in the back of their property which were established before they arrived at the property. Chestnut season is beginning in some parts of Victoria, but May is the peak for collecting chestnuts which have a short season and need to be stored in refrigeration once picked or they start to go bad.

Chestnuts can be easily prepared in an air fryer, and once peeled can be frozen for up to 12 months. We'll do a blog post about that in future, stay tunned!

Julie lead the group to the area where she's developing a citrus orchard, behind this area is where she raises seedlings, with a small greenhouse. Julie has seedlings available through the Grow Lightly shop, with different varieties available seasonally.

Chickens are the busy compost makers in Julie's garden, with a deep litter system of hay bales which gets cleaned out and used on areas of the garden such as the pumpkin patch to add organic fertiliser in the form of chicken manure to feed the soil.

A clever use of space, the chicken run has a green living wall of 7 year beans (scarlet runner beans), which created a bit of shade for the chickens, and also captured some afternoon sun and shade from a thriving macadamia nut tree which was laden with nuts.

The attendees enjoyed this vantage point as it looked out over Julie's abundant vegie patch, decorative flags flapping in the breeze on a warm autumn sunday afternoon.

Amongst the vegetables were many different kinds of flowering plants, great for attracting the pollinators like bees to the garden. Julie gave the attendees a freshly picked sample of a special Dutch bean of which seeds are a little difficult to come by these days, emphasising the importance of growing a diversity of not only different types of vegetables but also different varieties too.

One of the stand out objects in Julie's vegie garden was an old microwave, not connected to power, but a great upcycle project which is now where she stores her garden tools so they stay clear of spider webs and are out of the rain, but easy to access.

Some large raised beds at the far side of the vegie garden were nicknamed the "agapanthus graves" as Julie has used the torn up plants for a better use, as an organic matter which over time breaks down into compost and can be used to help fill her large raised beds.

The group discussed how we can better use noxious weeds or unwanted plants in the garden, specifically the ones that the local tip won't accept in the green waste area but instead get put into landfill.

Check back to the Grow Lightly blog in future for a post about how you can turn your noxious weeds into a rich organic weed tea fertiliser with pretty low effort.

This concluded the tour and the attendees were treated to a lovely afternoon tea provided by the Grow Lightly volunteers, and time to mingle and browse a little stall of handmade and second hand items Julie had set up for the special day.

Thank you to all who attended, asked questions, laughed, made a new friend, and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine with our community. We look forward to the next event, we've got a few at planning stage now so keep an eye out on our socials or sign up to our weekly newsletter / mailing list by clicking this link.

Thank you to Julie for welcoming our community to tour your lovely thriving property. If you'd be interested in showing our community YOUR garden, please get in touch, we'd love to do this again. email growlightlysocialmedia@gmail.com