Below the stark concrete blocks known as Floyd Lodge lies a colourful community garden named Floyd's Patch.

Officially opened last year, the vegetable patch was funded under the Well for Life program to promote healthy eating and exercise for people over 55.

Long-term street resident Terry De La Coer, 58, said the garden had brought people out of the flats.

"No one ever came here before," he said. "Many years ago, you'd see people and you'd say, 'Hello, how are you?,' and that was it.

"But now, people from the windows are saying, 'Oh, you're growing that wrong, you're doing this wrong,' so there's a bit of a conversation going on".

There are about 20-square-metre boxes, each an individual garden.

Even at the end of season, the lovingly tended garden is ripe with tomatoes, chillies, cucumbers, eggplants, pumpkins, zucchinis, grapes, capsicums, roses and sunflowers.

Not bad for a "bad year" and an inexperienced gardener.

"We're making a lot of mistakes, but even from last year we've learnt a bit," Mr De La Coer says self-deprecatingly. "Every year, you're learning. So next year we believe will be a bumper.

"This was a bad year in all Williamstown. Very few people got tomatoes, and we didn't get bees this year.

"Along that street, when those trees blossom, there's usually heaps of bees, but then this year it was delayed by a couple of months. So, they probably came out and said, 'Oh, bugger this.' Now they're coming [but] it's too late for them."

Bob Atanasovski, 58, said the sunflowers were planted in a bid to attract bees.

He said the communal garden worked because "no one tries to be the boss".

His chilli patch is a veritable United Nations smorgasbord.

"[I have] Mexican, Spanish, Macedonian, a lot of different countries," he said.

The autumn crop is expected to contain carrot, spring onions, cabbage, cauliflower and garlic. Plans are also afoot to start a fruit garden next to Floyd's Patch.

Mr Atanasovski said homegrown greens were good for saving money and preserving health. "You eat organic, it's different from what you buy at the supermarket. It's like you're living 10 years longer. You're eating vitamins and it's organic."