Veggies 🥦   Berries 🍓   Fruits 🍋   Nuts 🌰   Chickens 🐔

Meet the gardeners and their garden

As a nutritionist, Heike has a passion for helping people understand the therapeutic benefits of a diet rich in SLOW (seasonal, local, organic, whole) foods.  Since moving from her native Germany to Victoria in 1999, Heike has been active in many food-related activities including: helping to organise a new farmers’ market, co-founder Cardinia Food Movement, lecturer and clinical supervisor for nutrition at Endeavour College of Natural Health, being an active member of the Coronet Bay Community Garden, and running healthy cooking classes with schools, libraries, U3A, men’s sheds and even the Country Women’s Association!  Heike’s nutritional business is aptly named Ambrosia, recognising the life-extending benefits of a healthy diet.

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Come to see, learn and be inspired!

• As you visit this garden, you might be surprised to learn that it is still a relatively young garden, with the front garden being about two years old and the back garden a good three years old.  Heike transformed bare grass lawns (killed off with layers of newspapers and cardboard, as well as slices of hay and straw bales) into a little green paradise, all contained on a 540 square meter block. 

• The rambling front garden is incredibly diverse, mixing flowers, food and native plants, many of which have therapeutic properties.  Heike will enthusiastically explain the health benefits of her plants, such as California poppies which help promote sleep.  Half the backyard is growing into a food forest and the other half is devoted to chickens with a few hardy herbs that can withstand scratching chicken feet.

• There are likely to be many plants that you won't recognise, but which are either edible or therapeutic.  Some of the plants new to the Bass Coast Edible Gardens team included gotu kola and the lucerne tree. 

• There is a profusion of fruit trees, nuts and berries including: feijoas, citrus, blood orange, mandarins, limes, oranges, blood orange, cherry guava, figs, peaches, nectarines, apricots, apples, avocado, plums, pistachios, mulberries, raspberries, hazelnuts, blackcurrants, red currants, gooseberries, physalis and gingko. 

• Heike has seven compost bins, with some crops grown for her chooks and others as cover crops to enrich the soil.  Healthy soil is the first step towards growing healthy foods, leading to healthier people. In springtime, Heike's garden is decorated with the round seaweed balls that wash up on the beach at Coronet Bay, no doubt adding more nutrients to Heike's healthy garden. 

Parking and accessibility

Parking in street. Garden is relatively flat, but it is densely planted and there may be some trip hazards. 

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Address

​11 Scenorama Road, Coronet Bay