THE FARMERS
We have had long held dreams of organic farming and community food re-localisation.
In his former life, TIM was a professional chef in leading restaurants such as The Queenscliff Hotel, Fanny’s, O’Connell’s Hotel and The Stoke House. This is where he acquired a love for working with high quality produce and realised the joy to be shared in supporting the nature and perpetuity of small, diversified family farms and fostering direct, fair-trade relationships with their farmers. A ‘seed sown’ in childhood by his grandfather, for many years Tim loved growing his own organic vegies, but yearned to do it on a much larger scale. Today, Tim never feels more ‘at home’ than when he has his hands in the earth. He finds the physical labour, being connected to the rhythm and cyclical nature of farm work extremely rewarding. He has been known to devour books on organics and biodynamics cover-to-cover as nightly bedtime reading!
Having also worked in acclaimed restaurants, and later as a qualified practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, DERI-ANNE developed an abiding interest in the beauty of fresh foods, a love of cooking with fine, naturally grown ingredients and the importance of healthy nutrition. She has been similarly enchanted by herbs and flowers since her early years. One of her favourite aspects of farm life is raising the vegetable and herb seedlings and being witness to the mystical workings of Mother Nature as the plants journey through their lifecycle. Deri-Anne has held a keen interest in many facets of self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle for many years.
We have a serious passion for garlic and its many succours. This is largely why we chose to major in growing gorgeous, gourmet garlic. Affinity for certain plants or foods is a high order selection criteria for most of our crop choices. Our philosophy is that it’s best to enjoy a genuine respect and compatibility with the subjects of your craft if you’re going to spend a good deal of your life on that endeavour. This helps ensure we grow the best produce possible.
It’s our keen desire to see locally grown, in-season, chemical-free, non-genetically manipulated food become the norm once again in our daily lives, in addition to reducing food miles. We promote a meaningful relationship between growers and consumers and are eager to encourage people, including school children to grow their own backyard vegies and we support the renaissance of village life which seems to be blooming via the sharing of surplus backyard crops at ‘food swap meets’ in communities all over the country.
Billy the Maremma is our illustrious farm and family dog. His type hail from the Swiss-Italian Alps and are bred as stock guardians, living with and protecting sheep, goats, chickens or anything else you bond them to and train them to mind from predators. They are highly intelligent, intuitive hounds, very successful at their jobs and have been known to fight to the death in order to save their guards. We haven't lost a plant yet on his watch!
Our Billy is also very smart and intuitive but has been spared the weight of a fully fledged security position out in the fields! He is bonded to us and spends many of his days on the farm supervising our work and providing much comic relief and very good company. He watches out for us all day and night, making a very effective early warning system for approaching friend or foe!
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