• About
  • Shop
  • Preserve
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • The Book
  • Cultivate
  • Forage
  • Menu

Natasha Morgan

  • About
  • Shop
  • Preserve
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • The Book
  • Cultivate
  • Forage

A Festive Season Message

December 24, 2024

As the festive season settles in, I want to take a moment to share a message of gratitude and reflection with you all. This time of year is a wonderful opportunity to pause, take stock of the year that has been, and find joy in the simple pleasures that surround us—our gardens, our communities, and our shared connection to the land.

This year has been one of growth, learning, and creation. Whether you’ve joined me through workshops or social media, blog or newsletters, explored the stories of Oak & Monkey Puzzle or Little Cottage on a Hill, or simply shared a kind word or message, I want you to know how much your support has meant to me. It’s these moments of connection that make this work and way of life so fulfilling.

As the days grow long and warm here in Daylesford, the garden is at its most generous. There’s something deeply grounding about the rhythm of a productive garden in summer—abundant flowers, ripening produce, and the hum of life all around. It’s a beautiful reminder that nature gifts us moments of respite, joy, and purpose when we care for it with intention.

Join me in glimpses of the garden in its full summer glory. It’s a reflection of the love and care that has gone into its making and a symbol of the kind of life I hope to inspire in others—one of creativity, sustainability, and a deep connection to the spaces we inhabit.

As we move into 2025, I am excited for what lies ahead. From new and super exciting projects (more on that very soon!) to more opportunities to share skills and stories with you, there is so much to look forward to. But for now, let’s embrace the festive spirit - whatever that means for you, celebrate the beauty of the every day, and cherish the company of those we hold dear.

Thank you for being part of this journey with me. I wish you and your loved ones a festive season filled with warmth, laughter, and a touch of garden-inspired magic.

For those of you in Victoria’s fire-affected areas, take care, stay safe, and I am sending you all the positive energy I can muster. Our emergency services face an incredible challenge, and I cannot thank them enough for all that they do. 

With heartfelt gratitude,

Natasha xx

Tags: living well, slow living, Sustainability, gardening, workshops, community
Prev / Next
Newsletter Block
This newsletter signup form needs a storage option. Edit the block and enter a storage location via the Storage tab.

Subscribe

Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates.

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!
My baka kept her abundance under the kitchen floor. A cool cellar of jars, and nobody left her house unfed.⁠ ⁠ "Nataša, jedi," she'd say. Eat. I still use her Fowlers Vacola jars, and that cellar is where my idea of a productive gard
My baka kept her abundance under the kitchen floor. A cool cellar of jars, and nobody left her house unfed.⁠ ⁠ "Nataša, jedi," she'd say. Eat. I still use her Fowlers Vacola jars, and that cellar is where my idea of a productive garden began: herbs and flowers as much as veg, things to cook and preserve and hand over the fence.⁠ ⁠ At Little Cottage on a Hill it looks like a worm tunnel buried in every wicking bed. I drop the scraps in and walk away. The bark mulch on the paths breaks down underfoot, gets scooped up as compost for the beds, and fresh mulch goes down to start again. Composted goat manure from Rosie. Very little leaves the garden.⁠ ⁠ On Saturday 21 November I'm teaching The Productive Garden somewhere new, for the first time, at Stonewalls in Musk @stonewallsmusk. It's a very different garden to the two I created for myself, which makes it a good place to talk about reading your own site and your own soil. We'll cover bringing beauty and abundance together, soil biology, compost systems, green manures, worms, chickens, vertical growing and espalier, how I use wicking beds as little water-wise microclimates, heirlooms and hybrids, and where beauty belongs in the hardest-working corners of a garden. Courtyard, veggie patch or a few acres, it all translates.⁠ ⁠ You’ll even be invited for a final lap around the garden at Little Cottage on a Hill to finish off before you go on your way.⁠ ⁠ 📅 Date: Saturday 21 November 2026⁠ 🕙️ Time: 10am to 1pm⁠ 📍 Location: Stonewalls, Musk⁠ ⁠ The whole closed-loop set-up at Little Cottage on a Hill is in The Productive Garden Companion (signed copies at natashamorgan.com.au, or geni.us/productivegarden outside Australia), and it clicks a lot faster when you're standing in a garden with compost on your hands.⁠ ⁠ Places are small and they do go. Book yours at natashamorgan.com.au/shop. And if there's a someone you'd love to send my way this Christmas, the gift certificates are there too 🌿⁠ ⁠ xx⁠ ⁠ #NatashaMorgan #TheProductiveGardenCompanion #ProductiveGarden #KitchenGardenDesign #CentralVictoria⁠
The hugest weekend of @thediggersclub book launch events to celebrate my book The Productive Garden Companion, and it has rained the whole way through. So this is the lap I needed. I love these events and Digger’s extraordinary gardens and generosity, I really do, but they take a lot of energy, and there’s nothing like settling down after a day’s work and just seeing what the garden has been up to. It feels like everything has popped out of the ground overnight. And this is the first year my roses haven’t been annihilated by possums. We took out one tree, a cherry laurel that had self-seeded and whose berries were poisonous to the dogs anyway, and it turns out that tree was the possum superhighway into our place. I’m not saying pull out your trees. But one change in the traffic flow through the garden and the roses are utterly thriving. The very first rose of the season here in Daylesford is ‘Abraham Darby’. The full lap lives on Substack, where I have room to show you the rest: the Scots rose that came from Bank House in Newlyn, the clematis on the black fence, the zucchini going up the wicking bed frames, the caterpillars heading for the chickens, and the violas that keep self-seeding into a lucky dip. Link to my Substack in bio and here: https://natashamorgangardens.substack.com There is also one last spot available for this Sunday 1 November ‘Wicking Bed Garden’ workshop if your keen right here in my garden (link to events in bio) and here: https://www.natashamorgan.com.au/shop xx #NatashaMorgan #TheProductiveGardenCompanion #LittleCottageOnAHill #TheGardenLap #springgarden
Sometimes you just need to stop and appreciate the beauty of simple moments. I’m in the studio this afternoon making Lemon Verbena & Yuzu Syrup for this weekend’s @thediggersclub book events to celebrate The Productive Garden Compan
Sometimes you just need to stop and appreciate the beauty of simple moments. I’m in the studio this afternoon making Lemon Verbena & Yuzu Syrup for this weekend’s @thediggersclub book events to celebrate The Productive Garden Companion at @cloudehill.gardens @seasons.restaurant on Saturday and @gardenofsterth on Sunday, and I remembered my camera was in my bag. I used to do so much photography but life got busy. Books were made and birthed, and this little studio stopped being fully loved. Part commercial kitchen for @preserve.by.natasha.morgan , part workshop space, mostly my working hideaway (the kids have banned me from working in the house… something about the ‘trauma’ of a mother writing a book, day and night, through all the school holidays 😅). Little collections of things on shelves (dried hydrangea paniculata, linen string, @bridgetbodenham ceramics made for me, jars of herb salts to gift, a little jar of honey a workshop attendee gifted me), garden pickings squeezed into syrup bottles, yesterdays batch of Rhubarb Rose & Vanilla Syrup, and two sleeping doggos, curled up like croissants, keeping me company always as I work. It doesn’t take much sometimes to find joy. Less thinking. More seeing. Stolen moments. Happy Friday xx #NatashaMorgan #TheProductiveGardenCompanion #simpleandstill #countryliving #studioscenes
In the middle of a pandemic I had a bit of an existential crisis and I felt like an ant in a colony with no colony. Equally I had an epiphany that as long as I had access to soil, sky, air, and water, I had everything I needed. I write about this in my book, The Productive Garden Companion. This morning, waking up feeling anxious, I did what I often do: make a cup of tea, head out into the garden, and just be in it. Notice, witness, enjoy. I have to say, it’s probably the best antidote to this crazy world that I’ll ever be able to find. I hope you’ll join me. This the first 3 minutes. The full video is on my Substack: natashamorgangardens (link in bio) #natashamorgan #theproductivegardencompanion #gardenlife #productivegarden #livingwell
Suns out and the latest batch of signed books and @preserve.by.natasha.morgan summer syrup treats have hit @thehubgeneralstore in Collingwood. There’s a very special new seasonal syrup in there too. Ask Joshua at The Hub General Store. He’s as pleased as I am. ❤️ #NatashaMorgan #TheProductiveGardenCompanion #Pantry #Provisions #thehubgeneralstoreeaster
Garden design workshop, Daylesford, Saturday 7 November. The blank page is a myth. Your garden is already full of clues, and I'll show you how to turn them into a design.⁠ ⁠ Because there is no blank canvas, even when the garden is a mess. Every site
Garden design workshop, Daylesford, Saturday 7 November. The blank page is a myth. Your garden is already full of clues, and I'll show you how to turn them into a design.⁠ ⁠ Because there is no blank canvas, even when the garden is a mess. Every site has qualities living in it: where the sun lingers, where the wind comes from, where the water runs, the view you'd love to frame. Design is turning those into how you want to live out there, and what you'd see from the kitchen window. That's what we do together.⁠ ⁠ What I want for you is a garden that feels like everything you've ever wished for. Beautiful, yes, and a place that holds a rich, abundant life, that you actually inhabit, that gives more than it takes. To me, that's good design.⁠ ⁠ I've spent twenty-five years making gardens, from a botanic garden to five acres at Spargo Creek to the 515 square metres I live in now, and I'm an open book about all of it. I keep the group small so you get me, and I hear about your place.⁠ ⁠ What the three hours hold: I'll show you how I designed Oak & Monkey Puzzle, my five acres at Spargo Creek. Then we walk Little Cottage on a Hill, the garden at the centre of The Productive Garden Companion and the place it was written, where nine years of country living and every garden wish I had got distilled into 515 square metres. Then the nuts and bolts: my tried and tested ways to set your brief, map your garden, read what it holds and design for your place, your conditions, your context. Morning tea included. No design experience needed. You leave with a new way of seeing gardens, and the tools to take that home to your own.⁠ ⁠ 📅 Saturday 7 November 2026⁠ 🕙️ 10am to 1pm⁠ 📍 Little Cottage on a Hill, Daylesford⁠ ⁠ Places are already more than half gone. Book yours at natashamorgan.com.au/shop (link in bio) 🌿⁠ ⁠ If you'd like a taste, there's a three-minute exercise in The Productive Garden Companion that sits at the heart of how I open up a design (geni.us/productivegarden).⁠ ⁠ Know someone who'd love this? Gift certificates are on the website.⁠ ⁠ Xxx⁠ ⁠ #NatashaMorgan #TheProductiveGardenCompanion #GardenDesignWorkshop #GardenDesignIdeas #Daylesford⁠
Authors pay for their own book tours. Most people don’t realise that. It comes out of our own bat. Every kilometre, every bed, every coffee on the road. So when Hannah of The Little Drift @thelittledrift offered me a place to stay as part of my Gippsland tour for The Productive Garden Companion, it meant more than you can possibly imagine. And then I arrived. The Little Drift is two architect-designed tiny homes on the edge of the coastal bush at Sailors Grave Brewing @sailorsgravebrewing in Marlo, East Gippsland. Each one sleeps two. Off-grid, solar powered, tucked into old banksia forest, a stone’s throw from the beach. As curated and considered as anywhere I have ever stayed, it really is your home away from home. You not only don’t want to leave, you want to share as much love as you possibly can. Not only was the location perfect, everything about it was perfect. And then there is Sailors Grave itself. Gab and Chris Moore started brewing in the old Orbost butter factory ten years ago, and in 2024 they came home to Gab’s family farm and built @sailors_grave_dunetown , their farmhouse brewery between Marlo and Cape Conran, near where the Snowy River meets the sea. Beer brewed of this place, with foraged and native ingredients, a seasonal menu built on local produce. The name comes from a small cove at Cape Conran where Gab spent her childhood summers. My dear friends, and the most extraordinary brewing company. It is so rare, so, so rare, that I, as a solo parent, ever get a night away. If you are looking for that getaway, if you’re looking for a place to visit, if you’re looking for the perfect place to be as the weather warms up, I really would like you to consider The Little Drift at Sailors Grave Brewing. There are very few places where you can disconnect, switch off and remove yourself from the hustle and bustle of the world. If you’re looking for it, this is that place. Tell Hannah I sent you. It would mean the world to me. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you, Gab and Chris xx The Little Drift at Sailors Grave Brewing, 85 Marlo Plains Road, Marlo VIC, East Gippsland
Four gardens. Four completely different events. And I cannot wait. @thediggersclub have invited me into every one of their gardens to celebrate The Productive Garden Companion, and what we have crafted together is so much more than a book tour. Eve
Four gardens. Four completely different events. And I cannot wait. @thediggersclub have invited me into every one of their gardens to celebrate The Productive Garden Companion, and what we have crafted together is so much more than a book tour. Every event is different. A different garden, a different panel, a different theme, a different table. Diggers have teamed up with local winemakers, distillers (even a restaurant!), and the drinks are being mixed with my botanical syrups. Every ticket includes the garden. These are unlike events offered before. HERONSWOOD, Dromana. Sat 17 Oct, 4 to 6pm How Gardeners Grow, with Diggers CEO Fiona Forbes and Head of Gardens Julian Blackhirst. Drinks by @rhinotigerbear and @bassandflinders CLOUDEHILL, Olinda. Sat 24 Oct, 11.30am to 1.30pm Creating Gardens That Nourish Us, with Chloe Thomson @beantheredugthat Editor of @organicgardenermag and Fiona Forbes. A two-course lunch at @seasons.restaurant, then a walk through the garden with founder Jeremy Francis. @alkimiwines and @littlebear.sgn gin THE GARDEN OF ST ERTH, Blackwood. Sun 25 Oct, 4 to 6pm What Gardens Mean to Us, with Caroline Parker, @thecottageherbalist author of The Medicinal Garden, and Fiona Forbes. Food from the garden and @hepburndistillery. ADELAIDE BOTANIC GARDEN. Sat 14 Nov, 4 to 6pm Resilience and thriving in a challenging climate, with food writer and author Cherie Hausler @cherie_hausler and Sara Mitchell from the Diggers Adelaide team. We have been working on these for a long time, and I just can’t wait to be there. Diggers have been so generous in having me in their gardens and supporting me in the most warm, collaborative way. It is very rare to come across an organisation that so wholeheartedly champions authors and people in the gardening world. Please share some love with them. I want these rooms full, generous and bursting at the seams. If you know someone near one of these gardens, please reach out and let them know. Come to one. Come to all of them. You will get something different from each. Diggers members attend at the member rate. And I will be bringing along some very special things. Tickets via the link in my bio.
It’s hard to put into words what waking up here felt like so I think I’ll let it speak for itself. This was my morning lap today and it left me feeling at little like the rabbit at the end of this little moment in time. Watch to the end to see the moment of pure joy. Thank you so much @littlelusciousfarm for welcoming me into your slice of paradise so generously xxx
This morning’s lap was a bit of dash, split in half by a meeting, in fact. Phone in one hand, tea in the other, working out what’s in the wicking beds for the kids request of fried rice tonight. The full garden lap is up on Substack now.
This morning’s lap was a bit of dash, split in half by a meeting, in fact. Phone in one hand, tea in the other, working out what’s in the wicking beds for the kids request of fried rice tonight. The full garden lap is up on Substack now. Eight minutes, unedited, yes cars going past, me getting sidetracked by the first Lily of the Valley. It’s real, but hopefully equally generous. That’s the plan from here. Little snippets of my garden lap in stories here most mornings, and the full lap over on Substack, because Substack lets me share longer videos and share more of my world with you. I’d like to think it becomes the space where you can gather with me as your garden friend. It has become a wonderful place for me to share more of myself and more of what I do, and I’d love you to join me there. The lap is the thing I do every single day before anything else gets a look in. It’s how I’ve learnt this garden. And I’ve realised it’s one of the rare things most gardeners do, whether you’ve got two pots on a balcony or an acre. There is something so immeasurably powerful, yet simple, about a garden lap. So come and wander with me. And if you do your own lap, I’d truly love to know what you found this morning. Link to Substack in bio. Happy Thursday xx #MorningGardenLap #TheProductiveGardenCompanion #NatashaMorgan #ProductiveGarden #GardenersOfInstagram