Growing Healthy Communities

Join us for this series of six, weekly, hands-on workshops where we will gather together in the garden at Carlton Neighbourhood Learning Centre; a vibrant community hub in the heart of Melbourne.

Together, we will learn about the garden and food growing, share stories, build practical skills and explore the importance of resilient food systems and how to grow them together.

Facilitated by our Food Systems Coordinator, Nes Kagonda alongside a series of expert guest speakers, bringing fresh perspectives every session.

This program is designed for university students. Feel free to book in for one or as many of the six sessions as you'd like!

Free to attend, bookings are essential.

More info about each session:

WEEK 1: Nesbert Kagonda : Roots and Beginnings

An introduction to the garden, the diversity of this inner-city pocket, and what the program will cover. Those joining all six weeks share a plot, tend the soil, care for different parts of the garden, and become part of the community garden's expansion.

WEEK 2: Jemma Stefanou: Seeds of Resilience

Jemma facilitates hands-on introduction to raising seeds with confidence. explore store-bought versus local and commercial-grade seeds, seed provenance, and how to store seeds for lasting viability. Together we mix a seed-raising medium, both an accessible option and a premium farm recipe, then cover sowing and spacing, watering, fertilising and maintaining vigour through to transplanting.

WEEK 3: Dave Goodman: The Table to Farm

Dave explores composting, worm farming, and soil biology, showing how organic waste loops regenerate urban growing spaces. By e-bike, he collects around 450–500kg of food scraps each week from 13 venues between Flemington and Carlton, then turns them into organic plant food. This keeps waste out of landfill and brings local cafés and restaurants into the ecosystem.

WEEK 4: Lilah Benetti - Making in relation

We begin in the garden. Hands to soil.

From there we move to the kitchen, where we cook a much loved dish from Senegal, tangy and sweet. Yassa Poulet. Together around the table we look to food and film as a way to carry our stories and connect us from one place to another. Places we dream of and places we have never been.

Drawing on some of the earliest traditions of storytelling, we think together about what food carries, what it means to share a meal, and the power of a story told from the inside.

Come with an appetite for food and film.

WEEK 5: Isabella Raco - shared logic of circularity

Isabella reveals the interconnected nature of circularity through and hands-on sewing and upcycling workshop. Exploring the entangled relationships across textile and food waste. When waste is creatively reimagined, plants become more than ingredients

WEEK 6: Looking Back

After six weeks, we come together to share the stories and connections that have grown through the program. We invite our facilitators back for a shared lunch, a meal made with ingredients from the garden, to celebrate and deepen our community connection.