Cultivating Resilience: A Beginners Guide to Home Food Production
Part 1
In these uncertain times, with food flying off the supermarket shelves faster than it can be restocked, growing our own food at home has never been more important. We’re seeing an unprecedented surge in interest in home gardening in Australia, with nurseries around the country selling out of seedlings as people take their nutrition into their own hands by planting gardens, many for the first time.
The Melbourne Food Hub believes in a fair food system for all, and part of cultivating a secure and ethical food supply is raising awareness around the importance of local, urban food production. By learning the skills necessary to grow vegetables sustainably year-round to share, you’re helping your community become more resilient in the face of unforeseen shocks and challenges, whether it be global pandemics, changing weather patterns or extreme weather events (hello climate change!). So, let’s get started!
In this article, we’ll be covering the absolute basics necessary to start growing at home. We’ll look at planting seeds, looking after seedlings and transplanting (planting seedlings into the garden or larger pots). We’ll also talk about which veggies you can grow now to have a harvest within 4-6 weeks, as well as which slower growing veggies can be planted now to keep you fed all through Winter and Spring.
It doesn’t matter whether you have a huge backyard, a balcony or just a windowsill; there are ways you can grow food regardless of how much space you have. The only things you’ll need are:
- A sunny spot
- Access to water
- Soil (or potting mix if growing in pots)
- Seeds or seedlings!
Growing From Scratch: Planting Seeds
Growing from seed is the cheapest and most sustainable way to grow your own food, as a seed packet is generally the same price or cheaper than a punnet of seedlings but can grow 100-500 plants from one packet, compared to the 6-8 plants you get in a punnet! Plus, once you get the hang of it and start harvesting your own veggies, you can save the seeds from your best produce to grow again next year, building up a high quality seed supply to plant and share. It’s a little bit more fiddly but surprisingly easy, and incredibly satisfying to watch. However, if you’re in a rush to get some food growing asap, we recommend planting some seedlings now to get a head start while your seeds are still growing.
Steps:
- Find some seedling trays, punnets or pots. You can also use old egg cartons, styrofoam boxes or basically any other container you can get your hands on. No need to buy new!
- Fill the seed tray/container with seed raising mix (you can buy this from nurseries or make your own with sifted compost, coarse sand, and coco peat). If these options are cost prohibitive or you don’t have access to these materials, soil from your backyard will do (though it’s less ideal) Just remove any large pieces of wood or rock, loosen up and fill your pot, adding some finished compost if you have some on hand.
- Moisten the surface of the soil with a watering can, spray hose or mister.
- For larger seeds, use your finger to make a hole in the soil to the depth recommended on the seed packet and plant one or two seeds in each hole. For smaller seeds, sprinkle on top of the soil (leaving a couple centimetres of space between seeds or you can come back and thin out seedlings later, leaving only the strongest and largest ones). Lightly cover smaller seeds with a fine layer of soil.
- Moisten soil again.
- Place the seed tray in a warm place, eg. the bathroom, laundry or a sunny windowsill. They don’t need sun at this stage, but they do need to be kept moist consistently.
- Depending on the seeds you planted, you’ll start seeing the plants pop their little heads above the soil in as little as a few days to two weeks. As soon as the seedlings have germinated, they need to be moved to a sunny spot if they’re not in one already.
- Keep moist! It’s important to keep the soil moist but not overly wet. A light misting or spray once or twice a day should do it.
- If you’ve used poor quality seed raising mix or soil from your backyard, your plants will benefit from a gentle feeding every couple of weeks using diluted Season or worm juice (while the seeds have enough nutrients to feed the plant in the germination phase, once they have emerged from the soil they’re dependent on their surrounding soil for nutrients).
- Once your plants are around 2 inches tall (in 4-6 weeks), they’re ready to be transplanted to your garden or to bigger pots if you’re gardening in containers (woohoo!)
Tip 1:
Water gently with a watering can, hose with spray gun or even an old milk bottle with holes poked in the lid. Water enough to make the soil nice and damp but not so much that water pools on top of the surface, as this can wash away or dislodge your seeds.
Tip 2:
Growing seedlings in pots before transplanting them to the garden means that you can look after them more easily while they’re young and vulnerable, while making the best use of the garden by not wasting space waiting for seeds to grow while you could have something else planted there in the meantime. However, some plants don’t like being uprooted and re-planted and do better planted directly where they are to grow, including beans, peas and carrots.
Troubleshooting
While planting seeds is fairly straightforward, there are some issues which may show up from time to time. Keep at eye out for:
Yellow or weak looking seedlings
Unless you have fed your seedlings with too strong of a fertiliser (which can burn them or make them yellow from an overload of nitrogen), it’s most likely that your seedlings are requiring some extra nutrients, or to be moved into a bigger pot. Check the bottom of the pot or tray they’re in-can you see lots of roots popping out of the bottom? If so, it’s time to relocate to a bigger growing area and to give them a feed with some Seasol, worm juice or diluted organic fertiliser.
Tall, ‘leggy’ or sidewards bending seedlings
This is caused by a lack of light. The seedlings are growing tall and skinny and bending towards the nearest light source, so move them to a sunnier spot. When it comes time to transplanting, you can plant these a little bit deeper than you normally would to support the stem.
Seeds not germinating
If you’ve been patiently waiting for weeks and there’s still no sign of any growth, there are a few things that may have gone wrong.
- Not enough moisture: Did you let the seeds dry out at some point since planting? Most seeds require a fairly consistent level of moisture throughout the germination process to grow successfully. Even missing a day or two of watering can be enough to prevent seeds from germinating.
- Planted seeds too deep: Always follow the instructions on the seed packet for planting depth. Seeds that are planted too deep will run out of energy to grow before they reach the soil surface.
- Old or expired seeds: Seeds are only viable for a certain amount of time and storage conditions can cause otherwise healthy seeds to expire early. Make sure to use fresh seeds, check the expiry on the packet and store in a cool, dry place.
Seedlings becoming stunted
If your seeds were growing well for a couple weeks and then seemed to just stop, they may have either run out of growing space or nutrients. Check the bottom of the pot: if there are roots growing out of the bottom and starting to look like a tangled mess, it’s time to repot the seedlings into a larger growing area. If you can’t see many roots then perhaps the seedlings just need some extra nutrients. Give them a feed with diluted organic fertiliser, worm juice or seaweed extract.
Hardening off
Once your seedlings are around 2 inches tall (after around 4-6 weeks), they’re ready to be planted outside or in bigger pots. If you’ve been raising your seedlings inside, in a greenhouse or in another sheltered, warmer-than-outside spot, you need them to ‘harden-off’ before planting outside.
Hardening off is the process of getting pampered seedlings adjusted to outside conditions over the course of a week or so before plonking them straight in the garden where the more extreme weather (eg. scorching sun, cold nights or strong winds) can lead to transplant shock, a common cause of stunted or dead seedlings.
Start by taking your seedlings outside during the day, but keeping them in a sheltered spot where they get a bit of morning sun but are shaded in the afternoon, bringing them inside again at night. After a few days you can leave them outside for longer and longer periods, making sure to not let them dry out for too long.
A couple of days before planting, leave them outside all day and night so they get fully conditioned to outside temperatures.
So, now that we know how to plant seeds, the question is: what to plant?!
For quick harvests in as little as 4-8 weeks*, you can plant:
- Rocket: Can start cutting baby leaves for salads in 3-4 weeks, leaving the rest of the plant to keep growing
- Radishes: Depending on the variety, will be ready to harvest in around 4 weeks!
- Asian greens (mizuna, mibuna, bok choy): Can start harvesting baby leaves in 4 weeks
- Lettuce: Baby leaves can be harvested in 4 weeks, heads in 6-8 weeks depending on variety
- Coriander: Can start harvesting in 3-4 weeks
- Turnips: Can start harvesting 4-6 weeks
- Kale: Can start harvesting in around 6 weeks
- Silverbeet: Will be fully mature in around 8 weeks, but can harvest young leaves at around 6 weeks
- For slightly longer crops that you can eat from 8-12 weeks*:
- Carrots: Baby carrots can be harvested in around 8 weeks, with bigger carrots ready in around 10 weeks but can store well in the ground for some time before picking (particularly during cooler weather)
- Beetroot: Baby beets can be harvested in 6 weeks, becoming fully mature in around 8 weeks but can can store well in the ground for some time before picking
- Broccoli: Will mature in around 12-14 weeks, with many consecutive harvests of side shoots after harvesting the main broccoli head (if you grow a sprouting variety)
- Cauliflower: Will mature in around 10-14 weeks
- Cabbage: Will mature in around 12-15 weeks depending on the variety
- Swedes: Ready to harvest in around 12 weeks, but can store well in the ground for some time before picking
- Broad beans: Start producing beans in around 16 weeks and will keep producing for a long period (keep picking regularly to ensure continued production!)
- Garlic: Will mature in 7-9 months depending on the variety, but baby garlic (ie. ‘spring garlic’ or ‘green garlic’ can be picked earlier and eaten fresh (yum!) but will not store well
- Leeks: Mature in 15-18 weeks
- Peas: Will start producing in around 10 weeks and continue producing peas over a long period. Picking regularly will encourage the plant to produce more!
Read on for Parts 2 and 3, where we’ll cover different options for soil preparation for backyards and containers, transplanting and caring for veggies once they’re in the garden, companion planting for pest management and successional planting to make sure there are veggies ready to eat all year round.
Happy gardening!

Part 2
In Part 1 we covered the steps of seed raising and propagation, and now it’s time to look at different ways of preparing your soil for veggies (whether you’re starting a veggie patch in the backyard or growing in containers or raised beds) and how to transplant and care for seedlings.
Starting a Veggie Patch
If you’re lucky enough to have a backyard you can use to grow veggies, the first thing you’ll have to do is prepare the soil. There are many different ways to do this, but we’ll just be covering the two main techniques which can be used depending on what resources you have available.

Option 1: Put your back into it!
This method is more labour intensive but requires less resources; you’ll just need a garden fork, shovel or hoe and some compost.
- Start by marking out your garden area, making sure it’s in a spot that will have full sun even in Winter (ideally with a bit of afternoon shade in Summer if you’re in a hot climate), close to a water source and easily accessible from your house.
- Once you’ve marked out the garden, use a hoe to dig a small trench around the outside perimeter, to form a barrier between the garden and the grass outside.
- Use a hoe or garden fork to uproot the grass, using your hands to pull out all the grass roots. If your backyard has couch grass or kikuyu, it’s especially important to make sure to remove all the roots as these can regrow from even the smallest root piece left in the bed, and these will compete with your veggies for water and nutrients.
- Once you’ve removed the grass, use your garden fork to pierce the soil and gently loosen and decompact it, without turning over the soil. This will help plant roots find their way through the soil easier, while allowing for better drainage and aeration.
- Add a thick layer (10cm is good) of compost, and either mix it into the top layer of soil or just leave on top and plant directly into it.
Tip: It’s important to do some research on the history of your site to see what the chances are that your soil is contaminated. A lot of land in cities is ex-industrial and can have a legacy of contamination, and many house blocks in Melbourne have traces of lead in the soil due to lead-based paint on old houses flaking off and landing in the garden. If in doubt, best to do a soil test which you can do for free through Macquarie University’s Vege Safe program (or grow in raised beds instead): https://research.science.mq.edu.au/vegesafe/

Option 2: Sheet mulch/lasagna garden method
If the idea of digging for hours isn’t your cup of tea, and you have access to some free organic materials close to home, this method is probably for you. It’s essentially the same process as making a compost pile, but which you can plant into immediately and which will eventually break down into delightfully rich soil, teeming with life. You’ll need:
- Newspaper, cardboard or hessian sacks
- Carbon sources: Straw, autumn leaves, shredded newspaper
- Nitrogen sources: Manure, fresh grass clippings (not grass roots!), non-seedy weeds or green waste from the garden, kitchen scraps, fish meal, coffee grounds, blood and bone, organic fertiliser pellets
- The first step is the same: dig a trench around the garden area to create a barrier between the grass and your bed. If this isn’t possible for you, it’s also fine to just layer the newspaper, cardboard or hessian around the perimeter of the bed with mulch on top, you’ll just need to stay on top of the weeding to ensure no grass encroaches into the bed.
- Start by laying thick layers of newspaper, double layers of hessian sacks or single sheets of overlapping cardboard on top of your garden area and wet down with the hose.
- On top of this, spread a thick layer of brown materials, with a thinner layer of green materials on top of this, wetting each layer as you go.
- Keep alternating brown and green layers until you’ve used all of your materials, ideally to around 50cm high (which will drop down over the course of a few weeks and the materials start to decompose).
- Top the bed with a 10cm layer of compost to plant into, or alternatively just make small holes and put a couple handfuls of compost in each hole where you will plant your seedlings.
Tip: Root vegetables other than potatoes will not do as well in a new sheet mulched bed than in regular garden soil so plant these elsewhere or leave them til the next season once all the materials have decomposed into a rich, loamy soil.

Growing in containers or raised beds
If you’re short on space, have contamination issues in your soil or have trouble bending down, raised beds or containers might be a better option for your home food production. Apple crates, IBC water tanks and rain barrels cut in half are all popular recycled options for raised beds. On a smaller scale, styrofoam boxes, pots or food safe plastic buckets are good options for growing herbs or leafy greens in small spaces. The main things to keep in mind when growing food in containers or raised beds are:
- Drainage: If your container doesn’t already have drainage holes, you’ll need to poke or drill holes in the bottom to make sure excess water can escape.
- Soil: A good quality potting mix is fine for small containers, while a well draining soil blended with compost or aged manure is ideal for raised beds.
- Watering: Raised beds and containers will dry out quicker than in-ground veggie gardens so make sure to keep on top of the watering, particularly in Summer. Despite what you may think, Melbourne winters can be quite dry so don’t forget to water your containers in winter too if it’s been a while since the last rain.

Tip: Always check the seed packet of the crops you’re growing to know how far apart to plant your veggies.
Keep your seedlings well watered while young, and feed them with season, worm juice or organic fertiliser every 2-3 weeks. As the plants grow and get more established, you can let them dry out a little bit between waterings. Deep, irregular waterings are better than regular shallow waterings because this encourages plant roots to grow deeper in search of water, making them more resilient in times of drought.
Check your seedlings regularly to make sure they’re not being eaten by pests. Slugs, snails and cabbage moth caterpillars are the biggest culprits at this time of the year, but if you monitor the garden daily you should be able to keep on top of them by manually removing, squishing or feeding to chooks!
In the next section (Part 3) we’ll discuss succession planting, a technique to ensure a consistent harvest throughout the year plus we’ll go into more detail about organic pest management strategies including companion planting, crop rotation, physical barriers and (if all else fails), homemade or organic pest control sprays.
Until then, happy gardening!

Part 3
Good gardening requires good planning, and never more so than when it comes to succession planting. Succession planting is a way to extend your harvest, so you have different crops ripening at different times over the year, instead of having everything mature all at once and then having nothing at all for another couple of months. There are a few ways to do succession planting, and all require a bit of note taking so you can remember what you planted, when! In permaculture, we use the term ‘stacking in time’ to refer to what is essentially succession planning: making the best use of space by staggering plantings and inter-planting crops so every inch of soil is growing food for us to eat, in every season.

Staggered Plantings of the same crop: Space out plantings of the same vegetable every 2-4 weeks instead of planting all at once, so you can keep harvesting throughout the season rather than having it all ready at once.
Different vegetables in the same spot: Intercropping two vegetables in the same space by using two different but complementary species that don’t compete for space. Eg. Growing lettuce between broccoli while young, and once the broccoli is big enough to fill in the spaces, the lettuce is ready to harvest. You can do the same with radish and carrots: Plant rows of radishes between your carrot rows, as these will be ready to harvest in 4-6 weeks, just when the growing carrots will start needing more room.
Different vegetables in succession: Some crops have short growing seasons, and the space they were using once harvested can be replanted with a later season crop. For example, you can plant fast-growing greens like rocket and lettuce to fill in space in a bed before later season crops like tomatoes or zucchinis are ready to plant.
Same crop with different maturity rates: Some vegetables have different varieties that mature at different speeds, with early, mid and late season varieties being common. Check the seed packets for ‘days to maturity’, or choose varieties that are labelled such. Cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower are some examples of winter vegetables that come in early, mid and late season varieties. To successfully grow food all year, you’ll need to do a bit of research on the planting times for each crop, and create a planting schedule (and stick to it!). In a limited space, this might sometimes mean sacrificing a portion of the previous crop to make sure you have time to plant the next. For example, in Melbourne often tomatoes and capsicums are still producing well into late Autumn (sometimes even winter if they’re in a protected spot), but if you need the space to plant your kale and broccoli before it gets too cold, you’ll have to pull them out early.

Companion Planting: When we’re talking about planting different vegetables side by side to save space, it’s helpful to know which plants are compatible. Plants which aid each other’s growth are called companion plants, and they can do this in many ways. Some examples of successful companion plant relationships are:
- Taller crops shading a heat-sensitive smaller crop, eg. Growing tomatoes with lettuce at the bases. If tomatoes are planted to the west of lettuces they can protect them from the hot afternoon sun in summer, while the lettuces act as a living mulch for the tomato roots, helping to retain moisture and keep them cool.
- Flowering plants attracting beneficial insects, eg. dill with broccoli or kale. Dill attracts parasitic wasps (a beneficial insect) which control the white cabbage butterfly, whose caterpillars are a major pest of brassicas.
- Aromatic plants deterring pests, eg. chives help to deter aphids which is particularly helpful for broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower and kale.
There are many other examples of companion planting, and there are many charts available online showing all the different possible combinations. The best thing to do is just experiment and see what works for you. Possibly the best outcome of companion planting is increasing diversity in your garden-the more variety of crops you have, the more resilient your garden will be to pest and disease pressures.
Which leads us to…

Organic Pest Management: In addition to companion planting, there are many other techniques we can use to manage pests in the garden. The goal here should always be to create a healthy garden ecosystem to prevent pest populations from building up in the first place, rather than reaching for a pesticide, as these can be harmful no matter how organic they are. A few control strategies for common garden pests are:

Slugs and snails: These can be picked off and squished as you find them. Pouring some beer into a jar or cut-in half can and submerging it in the soil with the liquid exposed to the surface is a great trap for slugs and snails, who can’t seem to resist the yeasty smell. Copper tape can be purchased from nurseries which can be laid around plants in small spaces to protect seedlings, and crushed eggshells sprinkled around young plants can also help. You’ll know if your seedlings are being eaten by snails because there will be bite marks around the edges of leaves, or the leaves will disappear completely, leaving only bare stems!

Caterpillars: The most common and destructive of these is the white cabbage moth, whose larvae are the green caterpillars who love broccolis, cabbages, cauliflower and other brassicas. If there are telltale holes in your leaves (not just around the edges), the culprit is likely to be these guys. They lay tiny yellow eggs on young leaves which you can see if you look closely. If you catch them early, you can just squish these eggs before they get the chance to hatch, and give the caterpillars the same treatment. If you see the white cabbage moth flying around your garden, you can try using white bread tags or other small, white objects stuck on stakes as decoys, as these will look like other moths which will prevent them from landing and laying their eggs on your precious seedlings. In the case of a severe infestation, you can purchase Dipel from most nurseries. This organic certified powder can be mixed with water and sprayed on susceptible plants, and is actually a bacteria which infects and kills caterpillars while not harming other insects. Another option for protecting brassicas is to use a fine netting (available from most nurseries) draped over that section of the garden, which will prevent the cabbage moth from landing on and laying eggs on your seedlings.

Aphids: There are many different varieties of aphids and they can be grey, green, white, black or almost any other colour under the sun. They are tiny sap-sucking insects that can affect many different vegetable crops. You will often see them in groups on infested leaves, but misshapen, curling and stunted leaves are also a telltale sign of infestation. The good news is that they’re relatively easy to get rid of.
To prevent aphids:
- Include flowering plants in your garden, aiming to have something flowering in every season. This will attract beneficial insects like ladybugs, lacewings and parasitic wasps who feed on aphids.
- Plant garlic or chives near susceptible plants as aphids are deterred by their strong smell.
To get rid of aphids once present:
- Spray them off with a hose, usually this is enough to dislodge them.
- Make a homemade aphid spray by mixing an eco-safe soap with water and a pinch of cayenne pepper and spray regularly on infested plants (be careful not to spray on really hot days as it can cause leaves to burn)
- Neem oil is an effective, natural insecticide which kills aphids and can be purchased from nurseries.
For all other pest species, the guidelines are generally the same. The healthier your plants are, the less susceptible they will be to pest infestations. The key take home messages are: plant for diversity, include lots of flowers in your garden, practice companion planting and check your garden regularly to make sure you get on top of any pest issues before they get out of hand! For all other pest species, the guidelines are generally the same. The healthier your plants are, the less susceptible they will be to pest infestations. The key take home messages are: plant for diversity, include lots of flowers in your garden, practice companion planting and check your garden regularly to make sure you get on top of any pest issues before they get out of hand!

And there you have it, our series on ‘Cultivating Resilience: A Beginners Guide to Home Food Production’ is complete! We’d love to hear from you about how your Autumn gardening adventures are going, and what else you’re doing to cultivate resilience in your homes in these strange times.

Stay tuned for our next article, where we’ll be delving deep into ‘Climate Smart Gardening’, exploring how climate change is impacting food production, and drawing on strategies from permaculture and regenerative agriculture to help us mitigate and adapt to these challenges.
Until then, let’s make the best use of our time at home to get out in the garden and grow some food!