Digger's is a garden club like no other. Not into gardening? Don't worry – and don't stop reading. The Digger's Club's home is the historic property, Heronswood, in Dromana down the pretty Mornington Peninsula. It's a unique place combining fabulous gardens, a café,
special events
and workshops, and plants and seeds – all wrapped up in a commitment to sustainable practices and preserving the best plants and traditions.
There are five vegetable gardens in which the best
heirloom vegetables are nurtured and rescued. In fact Diggers has Australia's largest range of heirloom veggies, cottage flowers and fruit plants. If you join their club, you can have them, and hard-to-find, non-mainstream seeds, delivered direct to your door – though a visit is recommended first because the place is quite special.
Much of food grown in the gardens is served up in the café/restaurant,
Fork to Fork. It's a great way of exposing our senses to many foods we might not have seen or tasted before. Think purple carrots or green and yellow tomatoes. (If you've not yet tasted heirloom tomatoes, you're in for something special.) Whatever's not grown in their gardens is sourced locally, is seasonal and organic – so it's good for local growers and the environment too.
Digger's manage two historic gardens. As well as Heronswood, they also have
St Erth in Blackwood if you happen to live out Mt Macedon way. The café is excellent too.
While Digger's is about food, it's also all about helping us become better educated so we, and our kids, make better, tastier and more life-giving choices.
