Melbourne Garden

I'm establishing a new garden behind the church of Christ in Carnegie, Melbourne, Victoria. The conditions couldn't be further from the tropics. Melbourne has a temperate oceanic climate - being close to the ocean it's relatively buffered from extreme in climate.Located between Australia's hot inland and cool southern ocean the weather can change quite dramatically in the space of one day. The seasons in Melbourne are clearly defined making it easy to plan ahead when planting.
Average temperatures during the year are;

SPRING: September to November 8-22°C

SUMMER: December to February 13-26°C

AUTUMN: March to May 8-24°C

WINTER: June to August 7-15°C
 
Although Melbourne seems to have a reputation for often raining in fact it receives 50% less rain than Brisbane and Sydney. Average annual rainfall is 58mm or 5.8cm fairly consistently throughout the year.
Frost is not a big problem except in the outer suburbs - with and average of 1 frost day per year in Melbourne. With all this in mind I started to plant out seeds yesterday.
 
Carnegie Church has an "Open Hands" program where we try to give a hot meal to the needy on Wednesday lunch. We hope the garden can contribute some food to this.
 
We prepared 5 beds by first digging up the grass and turning it over. I then added all the organic around including some compost and old grass clippings. To get things moving along fast I added approx 1.5kg of blood and bone to each bed, the beds are not raised very high so I hope there will be enough drainage for the roots.I hope to start recycling waste from around the area to make compost and use this as fertilizer the main garden fertilizer in future.
 
Being Autumn the weather will from now become progressively cooler. I planted out some Broad Beans or Fava beans two types both "Early Long Pod" which can reach up to 2m in height and will benefit from some staking. The other variety "Coles Prolific" these being legumes will add much need nitrogen to the soil for summer planting of tomatoes and capsicums.(Search previous posts for the benefits of legumes in the garden)
In another bed I  also planted a bed of spring onions. A different variety of onions can be grown year round here in Melbourne. I bought the seeds ready fix to 6m of seed tape a convenient method.

 

In another bed I planted silver beat, in another cabbage. Will be interesting to see the growth over the next couple of months and what pests and obstacles we encounter.

A garden in any place adds more than meets the eye - a bit like adding an orchestra to a high school it lifts all. Any comments advice most welcome.