Dig-in Community Garden

Dig In is a thriving, abundant community garden at the western edge of J L Murphy Reserve in Port Melbourne. I was passing, and Chairperson Henry Michaelsen welcomed me in and showed me around.

There are 74 raised garden beds of various sizes in an irregular linear arrangement. Each bed is planted according to the preference of the plot holder. From the start, raised beds have been used to avoid contamination, as well as to make the garden more accessible.

Dig In has been so popular that it has been extended twice.

The beds are curtained with netting to protect the vegetables from possums. Rats from a neighbouring development site have been a persistent problem this winter.

The composting area includes various kinds of bins and tumblers. Worms process other scraps. Cafes in Bay St supply banana peels and coffee grounds which enrich the compost.

In the heart of the garden, in a secure coop, are the cosseted chooks. They can access a neighbouring garden bed of greens especially grown for them via a protected enclosed ‘bridge’. A team of rostered guardians tend to their needs, their reward the eggs.

The garden is meticulously cared for. On the first Sunday of the month, gardeners gather for a working bee to tend the common areas before having a shared lunch with pizza from the pizza oven . A new stainless steel sink has recently been installed. Each plot holder has a container in the shed for storing small tools and gloves.

Over time, the woodchipped paths have been resurfaced with more accessible and hard wearing granitic sand.

And there are bees hives too.

The access and approach paths to the garden are lined with calendulas, herbs and fruit trees.

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Back in the day, around 2000, community gardens were becoming more popular as a way of building community connections.

Paul Greco, community development worker at the Port Melbourne Neighbourhood House, liaised with Council and community to find a site that locals were happy with. The present site in Murphy’s Reserve, to the right of the photo, was selected.

At that time, the western end of J L Murphy Reserve was about as far out of the way as a place in Port Melbourne could be. It felt like an outpost of Port Melbourne. Now Dig In has created a community as flourishing as the garden, to use the words of former President Ann Rochford.

Its importance for growing food as well as community will only increase as Fishermans Bend develops around it.

SouthPort Community Centre (the current name of the former Port Melbourne Neighbourhood House) manages applications for plots.

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