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.
Instead of a community picnic, Home Harvest 2021 will focus on helping you to start or expand a vegetable patch by sharing seeds.
We’re excited to have teamed up with Banyule Council, our local libraries and other venues, and local artist Ravi Sommerhalder to create and install eight seed libraries for our community.
We would love you to get involved in swapping seeds!
Seed Library locations
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.
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:
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
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.
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