Melbourne's hidden urban agriculture scene

Food security is something everyone needs to think about as the climate changes and cities grow bigger than ever before.

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Food security is something everyone needs to think about as the climate changes and cities grow bigger than ever before.

One Australian city leading the charge in combining progressive thinking with culinary talent is Melbourne. The result is an exciting and ever-changing gastronomic landscape packed with fresh flavours and innovation.

Melbourne’s growing urban agriculture movement is a natural evolution of the increased value placed on sustainable practices in the hospitality and restaurant industry, making it a truly delicious destination.

Serena Lee is co-founder of Farmwall, a local company that started as a concept to bring urban agriculture into the city through vertical farms. The original idea was to feature them on skyscrapers, but they’ve expanded into cafes, restaurants, office spaces and schools. The technology is fully-automated and uses a computer to control things like grow lights and water flow.

“Chefs and restaurateurs have a lot of credibility, and can really be advocates for innovation, especially in food tech. We had to make sure it was creating value for them, not just a shiny piece of equipment they have in their restaurants, so we focus on growing microgreens on site - no food miles, no packaging,” she says, referring to things like fresh herbs.

“[Microgreens] can be one of the most challenging things to source, because there’s so much plastic waste and they’re very expensive and hard to store. You freeze them and they lose all of their nutritional value. The idea of growing a high-value product in a farmwall, and having it as a visual spectacle of sustainability and innovation without taking up the space of a table - it ticks all those boxes.”

Farmwalls are about the size of a vending machine, and can grow all kinds of things from radishes, broccoli, and kale as well as things like coriander, dill and chives. The seeds are germinated at an urban farm in the neighbourhood of Alphington and then transported to the restaurant Farmwalls, where they finish growing and are harvested.

Higher Ground, on Little Bourke Street in the city, and Top Paddock, on Church Street in Richmond, are just two of the eateries where chefs have embraced this technology so far. However, it is also possible to tour the urban farm in Alphington by appointment. Farmwall does twilight urban farming on Fridays, where they invite interested community members to get their hands dirty and help fill the garden beds.

“It’s a chance to meet like-minded people around a bonfire and have a couple of beers. We all just talk about saving the world,” Serena laughs.

“It’s free, but you have to work.”

Honey Fingers is part farming and part creative practice. It’s a beekeeping collective started by Nicholas Dowse, who was inspired to learn more when he studied the structure of bee hives as an architecture student at RMIT University.

The collective is primarily based in Melbourne’s inner-northern suburbs, including Carlton, Fitzroy and Coburg - an area which Dowse describes as “the golden circle of Melbourne beekeeping”.

“In terms of urban beekeeping, city bees are happy bees. In that area [of Melbourne], there’s a lot of urban forest, a lot of Australian natives, and some of the tallest flowering plants on earth like eucalyptus and melaleuca,” he says.

“There’s heaps of nectar in our streets. We’re less affected by droughts, we don’t have floods, we don’t have broadacre farming. We also don’t have to move the bees around in different seasons. Each of the harvests can taste really different depending on the botanicals that are in season.”

Dowse has been beekeeping for seven years and is very conscientious about the process. In particular, he’s very conscious to only “rob” the honey if the bees have some to spare.

“You can tax people, but you have to tax them sustainably. It’s the same with honey. You can rob the honey, but you need to rob it sustainably. If you do the job right, they’ll produce a surplus.”

When the honey is harvested, it’s sold through a number of bakeries, cafes and stores around the city, such as Baker D. Chirico on Faraday Street in Carlton, Pidapipo ice cream shop in Windsor, All Are Welcome bakery on High Street in Northcote and the Cottage Industry vintage clothing store on Gertrude Street in Fitzroy.

Cam Nicol is one of the brains behind Noisy Ritual, Melbourne’s first urban winery. His background is in live music and events, but about five years ago, he moved to Thornbury and found a bunch of old wine-making equipment underneath his house. He called his winemaker friend, Alex, and the pair decided to give it a go.

“It’s a fun thing to find under your house. We got a couple of friends together and got half a tonne of Shiraz [grapes] - that was autumn 2014. It’s very simple and straightforward and fun. It’s a great bonding activity for a group of people to do together,” he says.

“Everyone comes together and shares the labour of producing and then the spoils at the end.”

About 40 people turned up to help with the next batch, and they knew they were onto something. They started by opening a pop-up in a warehouse, and recently moved into a permanent space on Lygon Street in Brunswick. It’s a wine bar and event space with plenty of live music.

Grapes come from a network of premium vineyards throughout Victoria, showcasing the depth of high-quality produce available around the state.  Noisy Ritual has a focus on sustainable, low-impact winemaking with a goal to create balanced wines packed with flavour. Visitors can pop in and out at all parts of the process, from the day they stomp and press the grapes, to the day the wines are bottled.

“I never would have thought, five years ago, that I would be starting Melbourne’s first urban winery. Being involved in the process made me more comfortable asking questions, because the world of wine can be very intimidating for a newcomer. You can start your education from one batch of grapes.”

Originally published as Melbourne's hidden urban agriculture scene