Pakenham Community Garden

06/12/2025

Having started to organise the nursery from 7.30am, I am most grateful to everyone who turned up today and purchased plants from our beautiful community garden nursery today.

Max's tip for any new planting of crops:

Know your soils pH levels ! This will affect whether your new plants can biologically uptake all the nutrients you have lovingly incorporated into the soil.
Aim for between 6.0 pH to 7.0, ideally 6.5.

The lower your soil's pH is, the more acidic it is.

Pro-tip: perfect a balanced soil pH; the sweeter your tomatoes will be!

05/12/2025

Don't forget!
Plant sale tomorrow (6/12/25)
Still 10+ varieties of tomatoes, 6 types of pumpkins, 4 types of eggplant, and so many herbs and flowers to increase biodiversify your garden!
🍅🎃🌿🌸🌺🌻

🌱 We also have zucchini, cucumber and capsicum plants!

Special deal - buy more than 5 tomato plants and receive 2 for free!

10am-1pm
6b Henry St. Pakenham

🌭 Sausage sizzle from 10am

🎶 Live music 10am -12pm

Thankyou ! 🙏🏼

30/11/2025

So we have a serious problem...
We still have at least a greenhouse full of amazing colourful, organically grown seasonal seedlings... Who is yet to plant out their veggie beds for the summer???

Shout out to Vani for serenading us today!

Next plant and seedling sale is next Saturday 6/12 10am-1pm.
Check out the Pakenham Bike Repair Hub while you're here next week!

29/11/2025

Plant and seedling sale tomorrow (Sunday 29/11) 10am-1pm 6b Henry St 🍅🫛 🌱🥒

New in stock we have pumpkin plants, zucchinis, cucumbers, basil plants, and some trippy tomato varieties like Cosmic Eclipse, San Marzano (albeit less trippy, but just as delicious 🤤), plus watermelon, loofah, eggplants and variegated society garlic.

And heaps of punnets of flowers! 🌼💐🌺

Prices range from $2-4

We are offering a special deal on some varieties of tomatoes and eggplant - buy 5 for the price of 3

Please don't be shy, even if it's raining! These plants need to go into the ground!

See you tomorrow!

04/11/2025

To everyone who braved the less-than-ideal weather and turned up to support us at our first plant sale a couple of weeks ago, we thank you from the deepest of our collective roots.
Thanks for your patience and for all the plants you purchased 🌱
Hopefully the frost on the following Tuesday didn't affect your new plantings ❄️🥶

Believe it or not, we still have heaps of plants, including more cucumber plants!
We were going to wait another week before hosting another sale, but our tomato plants are almost jumping out of their pots 🦘🍅, so we've called it!

🗓️ This Sunday 9/11 from 10am-1.30pm at the Pakenham Community Garden site.

This one's going to be even better, with display photos of what all the mature plants will produce, plus sausages which will be ready for purchase and eating from 10am. 🌭🌭🌭

We'll also have a limited number of our newly screen printed heavy duty canvas shopping bags on sale for $20 each (see pic below)

Can we all cross our fingers that the 🌧️ will stay the heck away?!

See you Sunday 😊

24/10/2025

PLANT LIST BELOW FOR OUR SALE TOMORROW!

Please note that while our range is extensive, we have limited quantities!

We will have a sausage sizzle (snags for $3, drinks for $2) as well as live music happening during the day!

Address is 6b Henry St. Pakenham
Sale will run from 10am-3pm (or until we get rained out!)

See you tomorrow!

Tomatoes
Tiny tim
Tigerella
Lucid gem
Sunrise bumble bee
Wild sweetie
Blueberries
Rebel F1 (similar to Grosse Lisse)
Yellow beams
Black krim
Jaune flamme
Black cherry
Tommy toe
Red and black
Periforme Abruzzi
Crimson Beefsteak
Cherokee tomato

Eggplant:
Golden egg
Little fingers
Barbarella
Lydia
Togo
Black pearl

Zucchini:
Apollonia - (Dark green)
Goldy
Colombia (Light green)

Cucumber:
Lebanese

Capsicum:
Liberty cap (bullhorn type)
Sweet chocolate (bell type)
Lively yellow (bullhorn type)

Chilli:
Jalapeno
Habanero
Pimento de padron

Herbs:
Parsley
Basil - genovese, thai, holy
Dill

Flowers:
Cosmos
Zinnia
Dahlia
Sunflowers
Linaria
White borage (rare!)
Blue borage
Yarrow

Others:
Red beetroot
Rainbow chard
Silverbeet
Tuscan Kale
Spring Onion
Green sprouted broccoli
Purple sprouted broccoli

Send a message to learn more

10/10/2025

Hello home veggie growers of Pakenham & Surrounds ! 🧑🏼‍🌾👩🏽‍🌾

Max here, the Garden and Bike Repair Hub coordinator 👋🏼
The time has come to announce our Annual Spring and Summer plant and seedling sales!

The volunteers and I have been very busy bees over the past 4 months, sowing 1000's of seeds and potting up our organically grown seedlings into pots.

This year we're doing it a bit differently.
Instead of coordinating weekly sales (which takes a huge amount of work and volunteer time) we'll have 1 sale day per month, starting with the first one on Sunday 26th of October, running from 10am- 3 pm

I'll post closer to the date with all what we'll have available in pots and plugs, but here's a summarised list to whet your gardening appetite 🤤🌱

Tomatoes (10+ varieties)
chili's (3 varieties)
zucchinis (3 varieties)
cucumbers
capsicum (!!)
eggplant (5 varieties)
brassicas/leafy greens(purple/green sprouting broc, Tuscan kale, Bok Choy, lettuce)
flowers (6 types)
herbs (basil, parsley, dill, tarragon, coriander, anise hyssop)
medicinals (white & blue borage, comfrey, yarrow)

How does that all sound??

Prices will start from $1 for plugs up to $4 for pots and punnets.

All money raised goes back into the gardens + nursery.

We'll continue to add to our range as the soil warms, like pumpkins & gourds.

Sorry for the long post, and also apologies to those who have reached out asking us when the sales will happen. Needless to say, we hope to see you all on the 26/10!! 🌱🌼🥰

04/08/2025

Max here, the Garden Volunteer Coordinator at Living & Learning Inc - Skills & Wellbeing Centre in Pakenham.
I wanted to share an exciting new project that was made possible with funding from Cardinia Shire Council's Wellbeing support grant 2025.
Screenprinting!
It started as an idea to have our Community Garden logo printed onto long-sleeved shirts as a sun-smart outfit for volunteers while on (and off-) site. The idea quickly grew into an up-skilling opportunity, whereby volunteers and other local community garden coordinators could learn about the art of screenprinting.

The result? We now have a super screen-printing setup here at Living and Learning, as well as some very happy volunteers, now equipped with beautiful bamboo/cotton shirts with our logo, PLUS printed durable canvas bags.
I'm honestly so impressed what we have managed to achieve with this grant!

Thanks so much to artist Sharon Anderson from Art FX for sharing with us her tips and tricks for mastering screen printing on fabric, and to Bamboo Textiles for their shirts and Albury Enviro Bags for their canvas bags.
While the shirts are strictly for volunteers, we will have some of our printed canvas bags available for purchase at our upcoming Spring Seedling sales.

We also intend on starting our own screen printing workshops later in the year! Lots of fun to come!
Stay warm, and stay tuned for when you can come down for your spring seedlings and beautiful canvas bags 🧡🌱🍅

26/04/2025

If you don't yet have your winter + spring crops in the ground yet, it's not too late!
As part of tomorrow's festivities at the Yakkerboo Festival, our thriving seedling nursery will be having a sale tomorrow from 11am-3pm.

🥬🥬🥬🥬
Punnets going for $3 and single plugs for 50c.
Our range includes:
Rainbow chard
Sprouted broccoli
Silverbeet
Pointed cabbage
Parsley
Cauliflower (limited stock!)
Tuscan kale
Red Beetroot
Golden beetroot
Red and green frisse lettuce
🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓
We also have strawberry plants for $2 and strawberry runners for 50c!

All grow with love and community.

Come and support our Community Garden tomorrow (Sunday 27/04/2025)🧑🏼‍🌾 👩🏼‍🌾👨🏼‍🌾🌱

Pre-purchase your tickets now!
https://tinyurl.com/yakkerboorides

Cost is $15 per rider on the Sunday 27th April. Rides open 11am - 4pm. Rides list here:
https://yakkerboo.org.au/program-of-yakkerboo-events-2025/rides/

Pre-purchased tickets can be collected from the Yakkerboo Tent at the festival, PB Ronald Reserve. Collection may be made Saturday 26/4 4:30pm - 8:30pm (prior to the fireworks) or Sunday 27/4 from 10am

* All pre-purchase tickets include a booking fee

04/04/2025

Happy Friday!
We have plants and seedlings available for purchase tomorrow (Saturday) 2-4pm🌱🌻

As the days grow shorter, we can look forward to quieter times in the garden soon 🙏😴 ❄️
But while you consider what kind of garlic you'd like to grow in your garden over 2025, please come and check out our seedling plugs suitable for planting and growing in mid-Autumn through to early Spring.

Our current range includes:

Red beetroot (Boro F1)
Golden beetroot (Boldor)
Parsley (Italian flat leaf)
Red cabbage (Red Queen F1)
Pointed green cabbage (Teama F1)
Sprouting Broccoli (Matrix F1)
mini cos lettuce (Dragoon)
Baby frisée leaf lettuce - red/green - (Tralex/Excipio)
Rainbow chard (Bright lights)
Silver beet (Silverton)
Bok Choy (Showman F1)
Kale (Tuscan Blue/cavolo nero)

Plugs cost between 50c and $1, depending on the crop.

We have larger plants in pots including rhubarb, parsley, Genovese basil (for growing indoors), spring onions and Fresca strawberry for $3 ea.

F1 indicates that the variety has been hybridised to cater specifically to our local cool-temperate climates and which offer consistent high production yields plus other benefits.
*Transparency note: The downside of F1 varieties, is that if the seed post harvest is saved and re-sown/grown in the following year it may not grow as per the 1st season 'true-to-form' species.

We sometimes only grow these varieties due to limited space, but mainly because we supply several leading local market gardeners who want to have a unique and sustainable edge in the increasingly competitive/cut-throat market that is dominated by larger conventional growers.

By supporting our community nursery + garden you are also supporting local farmers who grow food without petro-chemicals in our region of Victoria.

All seedlings have been sown from seed and grown with love and organic practices, by our garden volunteers for local home gardeners.

*All funds raised are put back into our Community Garden which collectively powers and maintains the Nursery on a day to day basis 🙏❤️🌱

Plant and seedling sale details:
Saturday 5/4/2025
2-4pm
6b Henry St Pakenham.

Cash + card payments accepted

Thankyou and see you tomorrow 🙏🌱☺️

Ps: pictures include some of the seedlings/plugs we have available : kale, red beetroot, silverbeet, mini-cos lettuce

15/11/2024

Good evening Pakenham followers!
We won't be open for our organic plant and seedling sales tomorrow as per usual, as we will be offering select herb and vegetable seedlings FOR FREE (one per person) at the 'Pakenham end of project celebration' 🚝 🛤️

For the range that we'll be offering, you'll just have to come down and check it out! ;)

From 11am-3pm tomorrow (16th of November), there'll be stacks of entertainment, games for kids and heals of cool stalls (ours included 😎) + free food.

@ Pakenham Station and the Henty Street open space

For some reason I couldn't find much info about the event on FB, but you can learn more about it via the link below.
I also took a photo (sorry for poor quality pic) of the day plan that was sent to the stall holders.

Thanks for everyone's support this year! It's so lovely to always see new friendly faces come and support our beautiful Pakenham Community Garden 🙏🙏🙏

PS, if you don't currently follow our page, please jump onto our page and hit the 'like' button as I will be posting information soon about upcoming workshops on:
- Composting at home
- installing irrigation in your garden
- how to get the most out of your veggie beds + more!

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/community/community-events/lxrp/pakenham-end-of-project-celebration

08/11/2024

In the spirit of supporting community and community-run events, the Pakenham Community Garden team has decided to host our weekly plant and seedling sale this week at the same time as the wonderful new Twilight Market, as shared below.

Our community nursery will be open tomorrow (SUNDAY 10TH NOV) from 2-4pm.

Address: 6b Henry St. Pakenham

Cash accepted and EFTPOS available.

The range of plants available is consistent with what has been shared in our previous posts.
Prices range from 50 cents to $5.

Very cheap organically grown plants!!

Please bring along any plastic trays and seedling punnet trays that you no longer want/use, and we will happily put them back into circulation ♻️🌱💪

📣PAKENHAM TWILIGHT MARKET 📣

📍14 Anderson Street (Opposite PB Ronald Reserve, Pakenham)
📆 10th November - Sunday
⏰ 2pm - 6pm
🐾 Pet Friendly (on leads please)
🎄Pre order your Christmas Presents with your favourite Stall holders

Pakenham Twilight Market
Pakenham Twilight Market

Please respect the neighbours and theirs driveways 📣

NOTE: The market is fully booked so we are unable to accept any further applications