Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Growing Gourmet With Rhiannon Phillips
94 Plays18 days ago
Mykal is on a field trip this week to the Mountains Gourmet plot in the Mid Blue Mountains to visit Rhiannon Phillips, the founder of Mountains Gourmet. Rhiannon is passionate about supplying fresh, healthy, sustainably grown gourmet produce to her community.
DESIGN STUDIO
GARDEN COACHING
FREE PERENNIAL GARDEN DESIGN DOWNLOAD: DOWNLOAD
FREE NATIVE NATIVE GARDEN DESIGN DOWNLOAD: DOWNLOAD
________
Episode Links:
Mountains Gourmet Website
Mountains Gourmet Instagram
________
Mykal's Links:
thegardenerslodge.co.uk
Instagram
Tik Tok
Growing Media Production ©2025
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Gardener's Lodge
00:00:08
Speaker
Step into the gardener's lodge with me, Michael Hoare. Let's explore the fascinating world of gardening, nature and ecology through conversations with experts, thought leaders, passionate enthusiasts, and of course, some real good friends, all from the cozy heart of the lodge.
00:00:25
Speaker
Come on in.
Acknowledgment of Traditional Lands
00:00:28
Speaker
The Gardener's Lodge podcast is created on the traditional lands of the Darug and Gundungara people in the Blue Mountains. We pay respect to all First Nations elders, past and present.
Interview Reflections with Rhiannon
00:00:41
Speaker
G'day. Picture this. It's an early autumn afternoon. I'm sitting surrounded by beautiful produce grown completely organically on a sloping block that overlooks the mountains.
00:00:57
Speaker
I'm chatting with Rhiannon from Mountains Gourmet. She is an organic farmer, an organic small market gardener. She produces veggie boxes for the local community.
00:01:08
Speaker
She supplies fresh produce to Australia's largest, most successful mainstream technology company. She cares about the produce people put into their mouths.
00:01:20
Speaker
I love this interview because of the location that we recorded in. There was many interruptions which have been edited out, but it will we are sitting in a working farm. She had people coming and picking up boxes. She had her dad dropping off some supplies.
00:01:35
Speaker
It was amazing to get to experience a little bit of Rhiannon's life. And I am so glad that we had the opportunity to record with her.
Market Gardening Insights
00:01:46
Speaker
The chat covers a wide range of subjects from market gardening through to the food web through to running a successful small business in the small ag industry.
00:01:59
Speaker
It was a great chat. I can't wait for you to listen to the full episode, but first, of course, of course, of course, we have our six rapid fire questions for Rhiannon.
00:02:11
Speaker
Are you ready?
00:02:19
Speaker
Yep. Okay. Perfect. Favorite plant? Smarties. Favorite way to connect with nature? Hands in dirt. Soil. Hands in soil. Most beautiful garden or natural landscape that you've ever visited?
00:02:31
Speaker
The McDonald's Ranges are just stunning. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Weirdly barren, but amazing. Favorite garden tool? I have this weird planting tool, but it is perfect for the seed blocks.
00:02:42
Speaker
Oh, okay. i don't know what to call it. Like a Hamilton planter? Cute. Oh yeah, yeah oh it's kind of like a hori hori knife. Yeah, but not a knife. If you could be one, would you be a plant or an animal?
00:02:55
Speaker
Animal. If you're looking to research anything, where do you go to find the most sound advice? I'm like an experienced girl, so I will look for a podcast on the thing.
00:03:06
Speaker
So when someone else has already experienced it, I can try and look that up. But if it's something really specific, I'm a big, because my hands are always dirty, I'm a big like, hey Siri, what's the answer to this? And then go from there, like see what she gives me. We are sitting in the middle of your market garden.
00:03:22
Speaker
It's beautiful here. It's like a big field with, you know your rows and rows of veggies that you grow for the local community, facing back right onto a gully in the Blue Mountains with a native bush.
00:03:35
Speaker
Kind of in front of us here. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. There's a few weeds popping up here and there, but all
Rhiannon's Market Garden Setup
00:03:41
Speaker
manageable. That's every garden. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, no, I am super lucky to have, you know, a north facing slope and I look at it. I think it's Mount Hay.
00:03:51
Speaker
There's a mountain over there that looks very beautiful. It does look very beautiful. It's like you can see all the way through the gully, um, all the way out, which is great for views, not great for weather patterns. This is very exposed here coming through that gully.
00:04:04
Speaker
So what was your journey to farming or to small scale farming or peri-urban farming? Yeah. um I studied a degree of animal and veterinary bioscience at Sydney Uni.
00:04:16
Speaker
So after school, I went straight to uni and lived in Sydney for a few years. I was very keen to get out of the mountains because I actually grew up here. And, um, in that I actually majored in livestock production systems. So i was really keen to get into cattle and sheep and all of that sort of stuff.
00:04:33
Speaker
No thoughts about like healthy and organic growing and regenerative agriculture until I actually got into the industry and was like, oh, this is not very healthy. And this system is so broken. There's some big problems.
00:04:48
Speaker
Um, and, um, ah You know, I've got a bit of a, I can fix it problem. I can fix any problem sort of attitude. yeah um But I also was very aware that, you know, one person, it's hard to make change on a huge scale, but if you start small, then it's doable.
00:05:08
Speaker
So, um I worked on a lot of different farms and got a lot of, um, experience like while traveling Australia. So I bought a bus and I fitted it out to a little tiny home and I traveled, um, up the East coast and into Alice Springs for about 18 months.
Transition from Livestock to Vegetables
00:05:23
Speaker
and It was pretty great. is amazing. It was awesome. Yeah. so it was like post uni, I went to South America for a few months, had fun and then came home and was like, all right, I'm going to finish this bus and then I'm going to go travel and I'm going become a consultant, a farm consultant. I'm just going to get all of this knowledge. And then, you know, every farm that I went to, you could just tell, you know, these middle or late aged white men, there's no way they're listening to a small girl telling them that they should implement this on their farm.
00:05:50
Speaker
So I was like, okay, time to actually think about what, um you know, what I can do and where my niche might be. Obviously felt really comfortable in the mountains, but yeah, then COVID happened and I got a full-time assistant manager's role on a farm in the Hawkesbury called Hebron Farm. Okay.
00:06:07
Speaker
And it was awesome. Like it was just, you know, we had cattle, we had sheep, goats, chickens, orchard and market garden. So we just had like a finger in every pie. yeah And I just got to learn so much under my manager at the time.
00:06:20
Speaker
um She had a master's in organic farming. So I just learned so much so quickly. And then she decided to move back to Queensland. So then the farm was mine to look after. And I was like, Oh shit.
00:06:32
Speaker
Oh my God. It's time. It's time to step up. How long were you there before that happened? Uh, like four months. Oh yeah. It was quick. ah Good God. Yeah. And I was like a 23 year old that was like all ego ready to go.
00:06:46
Speaker
So obviously I was like, yeah, I got this. No problem. Consider it done. And then I was just like floundering around for two years. I was there and, you know, had staff come and go and it was, it was awesome. It ended up being a fully female run farm.
00:07:01
Speaker
So we loved that. Um, and then, you know, I needed to make a move for money and less travel to work. Cause it was a long way to work, um, you know, an hour and a half each way.
00:07:13
Speaker
And then, yeah, i worked in North Richmond for about six months, had some great money, but we just kept getting flooded. we were farming on the river flats and it was when all those floods came through. Yes.
00:07:24
Speaker
The wettest years of my life. Oh my gosh. It was so wet. And I was like, I think I'm becoming a frog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially down there. i mean, Didn't it flood like three times in a year? Yeah. Yeah. yeah so the year that I left Hebron Farm, we already had one flood and then I'd moved to Happy Farm and, you know, we had the market garden, we had some sheep and just like a smaller, it was a smaller farm, but um sort of a bit more finances behind it. And yeah, we lost the whole market garden three times. So was it that experience that, so the the experience of those farms that kind of moved you away from livestock and into sort of more vegetable and market gardening?
00:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the the combination of the floods and I mean, it didn't turn me off livestock at all, but the combination of the floods is what moved me back to the mountains, like actual mountains that can't literally flood. yeah So I was like, OK.
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, I grew up on acreage just down the road here. So i was like, oh, I'll just farm back at home. And then, you know, farming with family is hard. Any business with family is hard and I was super lucky that this property was available to lease.
00:08:28
Speaker
um But I moved away from livestock mostly because I just didn't have the space to do it. yeah And the to do livestock as a young person, the amount of capital you have to invest is crazy. Absolutely. And there's huge risk, you know, like if you get a disease through the whole flock or, you know, floods or something like that and you lose the whole flock, you're probably losing 30 50 grand. And particularly in Australia, I mean, you know, less so over this side of the Great Dividing Range, but if you're over the other side, you've got drought to content with.
00:08:56
Speaker
Bushfires. so Bushfires. yeahs Yeah. It's so volatile. Exactly. Yeah. Whereas if, and, and as well, I looked at farmers who had been farming for, know, when I was working out in Alice Springs, they're like, yes, we get one holiday every three years because we can't leave the cattle.
00:09:09
Speaker
Whereas if veggies, they're all on a drip irrigation and I can leave whenever I want. You're out of here. It's great. I'm going for the weekend. See ya. So yeah, that was a huge thing as well. i was like, I, I've, I mean, I always work hard, but I wanted to have some sort of choice in my lifestyle. A little more freedom.
00:09:25
Speaker
A little more freedom. And when you're working with livestock, you just have so much responsibility. um I miss it, but I also don't miss it at all. You know, and miss doing the work with the sheep, but I also don't miss thinking about them 24-7.
Women in Small-Scale Farming
00:09:40
Speaker
So before you mentioned that I guess you created an all-female farm, more and more women are getting into farming and I kind of see it a lot in small-scale farming, basically what you're doing here. What do you think the driver for that?
00:09:53
Speaker
I think a lot of women are getting back into small scale farming. Like, i mean, originally farming and market garden is so innately feminine in a way, like, you know, the nonnas would be out there weeding and like picking all the tomatoes and all that sort of stuff.
00:10:07
Speaker
Um, but I think through like COVID and just before COVID, like a lot of people just got that connection again to growing their own through, you know, thinking that we're all going to starve.
00:10:18
Speaker
I'd be like, oh no, I think I need to grow my tomatoes. And I think um a lot of people realize you can do it. It's doable. It's doable on a small scale. I think also the push for um dual income, like yeah it throughout, i mean, for me especially, throughout like, I don't know, when you start to decide to have kids with a partner or something like that, having a market garden or having something else growing at home means you can still be at home but still be earning an income in a way.
00:10:44
Speaker
And that's something that I've thought about as well. Like this is something that you could have in your backyard on a smaller scale. And even if you're only, you know, making 200 bucks a week by selling a few veggie boxes, you can do that between, well, I i imagine you can do that between raising a child You know, putting in a few hours here and there too. just And also being able to supply. i think a lot of people are really excited about supplying their own produce to themselves and their family um because they know where it's come from.
00:11:12
Speaker
There's so much more media coverage about how veggies grown in commercial farming and that sort of stuff as well. So before we dive into all of those topics, let's reverse it back.
00:11:23
Speaker
And, you know, what is market gardening? So market gardening is such a broad term, but it's farming on a smaller scale with a variety of crops that you would usually take to a market on the weekend to sell.
00:11:37
Speaker
So when you see a market stall, if it's all just potatoes, you're not going to have a lot of business. But if someone can come and get their silverbeet, potatoes, kale, chilies, eggplants, all of the things for the week at the market, um like a farmer's market, then they will.
00:11:53
Speaker
So yeah, market garden is that. And I suppose it's now kind of like with the internet, you can kind of reach directly out to the consumer as opposed to having to go every Saturday and Sunday to markets around the community.
00:12:06
Speaker
What kind of inspired you to open that aspect of the business? Um, the veggie boxes, um, I actually find veggie boxes so tedious, but they're really important in this system because it means there's no waste.
00:12:20
Speaker
yeah So I, my veggie boxes are like, you just buy the box per week. You don't get to choose what's in it. It's just whatever seasonal. And some people love it. Some people prefer to choose what they're eating each week and that's fine.
00:12:31
Speaker
um But it means that after I get ah my other
Community Connection and Organic Farming
00:12:34
Speaker
big orders that actually pay me, then I can be like, oh, okay, so I've got 25 silverbeet, 25 bok choy, 25 kilos of cucumbers and that sort of stuff. And I can create a box that has all of whatever's left in the garden into that box.
00:12:47
Speaker
So there is literally zero waste from this farm, which is nice. There's no produce at the end of the week that goes, oh, no one's going to eat it. I have to throw it out or compost it. Like someone's always bought a box that I can put it into.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah. So what are your other avenues of your business selling to restaurants? um Yeah, I mean, no restaurants at the moment. So I have Black Cockatoo Bakery. So I guess I mean, not a restaurant, but a cafe and bakery.
00:13:11
Speaker
um So they take produce produce each week. They take like edible flowers for their pastries. um A few of the staff get veggie boxes as well. So that's great. And I started just doing a little produce stand out the front of the Lawson one, um the Lawson shop as well, which is really nice. Yeah. And I'm getting a few messages saying like, oh, I saw your herbs at the...
00:13:29
Speaker
at the um front of Black Hawk too. And it's really nice to be able to get my basil with my focaccia and stuff like that, which is cute. um And then i supply some to Blue Mountains Food Co-op as well in Katoomba.
00:13:41
Speaker
Littleton store, they've now closed down. yeah They're a big, big one as well. And then I have a big client in Sydney. So I deliver down to Canva in Sydney. Nice. Canva, the tech company. Yeah.
00:13:53
Speaker
yeah Fascinating. Yeah. It's been ah really great relationship to have. So tell me about that then. So they will, do they have a chef that then prepares food for their staff and you're providing the produce?
00:14:05
Speaker
Pretty much. Yeah. So they have, think it's like five or six full-time chefs for their staff. It's like Google. they have Yeah, exactly. it's just a Google model. They have the most, I mean, and I'm speaking just from what I what i see. i have no idea what the actual structure is, but um I've worked with them since I've been at Hebron Farm. So Hebron Farm actually used to supply them.
00:14:25
Speaker
And then when Hebron Farm closed down, i just waved my arm in the air and said, hey guys, if you still want produce, I'm actually growing up in the Blue Mountains now. right So they were like, yep, sweet. And the next week I was delivering and they have been the best relationship, um working relationship I've ever had. Like in market gardening, they they're so happy to take whatever seasonal they're happy to take.
00:14:47
Speaker
You know, if I say, oh, guys, these are really urgent, I need to move 50 bunches of spring onions. They're like, no problem. Send them down. We'll make a spring onion pesto. Wow. wow I mean, obviously as well, that's, you know, a big business that has a lot of funding to hit sustainability targets yeah and working with small producers ticks all those boxes. So...
00:15:07
Speaker
and Talking about sustainability, what advantages does market gardening offer in terms of sustainability and community impact? um I think having farm that people can come to and see where their food is grown, um that is a huge impact on the community. And people being able to come down, get their veggie box from the farm and walk down while I'm harvesting and say like, oh, wow, like,
00:15:32
Speaker
How did you do this with your tomatoes? Oh, that's an interesting way to trellis these beans, blah, bla blah, blah. How can I implement that in my garden? um So it just, it creates a connection with me, the farmer, to the consumer.
00:15:45
Speaker
It creates a connection from the consumer to their food. it also then shows them that you can grow all of this organically and, you know, organically in quotation marks, because this isn't a certified organic farm industry.
00:15:58
Speaker
It's community certified, you know, it's past organic, it's all regenerative and um within the system of sustainability, but also regeneration, it's ticking all the boxes. So what sustainable techniques do you implement here?
Sustainable Practices in Gardening
00:16:11
Speaker
um So I'm doing a no-dig system at the moment. um So once i when I started the garden, I actually did an initial power harrow, it's called. um Basically, it just turns the top of the soil to rip the grass from the soil.
00:16:26
Speaker
And that allowed me to get a really jumpstart on growing without a weed weed pressure. um I use mushroom compost as like a top dress basically and I also grow my um grow my own compost. I guess it is growing but make my own compost. Nice.
00:16:41
Speaker
um So the mushroom compost goes down as ah as a bit of a fine layer on top and because that's a sterile product it means that I don't have a weed seed problem coming up all the time. so Like you would from, say, your own that you grow?
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, not so much my own, but if I was tilling the soil to make it light and fluffy to plant into, I'd be bringing weeds from lower in the soil up to the surface to germinate. So a lot of the time in like conventional farming and even conventional market gardening, there's a lot of tillage that happens to turn beds quickly to keep keep veggies growing.
00:17:13
Speaker
And then you get a lot of weeds. So that means that a lot of chemicals have to be used to stop the weeds. And then you just get this never-ending cycle of poor quality soil, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess my main tick of sustainability is just soil quality and making sure that the soil is what I'm looking after and the plants are almost a byproduct.
00:17:33
Speaker
Hey, if you like native plants as much as I do, I have a special treat for you. I've created a free Australian native garden design or planting palette. What it is, is a collection of beautiful Australian native plants that are very adaptable to all different climates within Australia. So if you're stuck with what to plant in your native garden, download your free Australian native garden design.
00:17:56
Speaker
The free download also comes with a bunch of extra information on the steps you'll need to make it flourish. If that sounds like something that you'd like to take advantage of, the link to the free download is in the show notes below this episode.
00:18:09
Speaker
Check it out.
00:18:12
Speaker
So what are some of the unique challenges of growing in the Blue Mountains? We're obviously in a kind of we what a temperate, cool temperate climate here. Yeah. um You know, you're kind of on a sloping block.
00:18:25
Speaker
You mentioned earlier the prevailing weather systems that come through the valley. Yeah. um Yes, it's so specific to this block. I find there's so many little microclimates in the mountains, especially like if I compare my block to, I've got um clients in Boulevard, they go and check their block and that will have completely different weather in the same day.
00:18:45
Speaker
um think this slope is actually perfect for market gardening. I couldn't tell you the degrees of it, but it's enough. Like fifth band? Yeah. interview but Yeah, maybe even a little bit like the top is a little bit more and kind of just like terraces its way down. But it's enough that it never floods. It never like gets waterlogged, which is great.
00:19:07
Speaker
um Bit of a problem that the top is actually on a sandstone, don't know, under cliff sort of thing. So there's bit of topsoil, but not much. Like this top really can go down to 20, 30 centimetres. Classic mountain soil.
00:19:21
Speaker
Exactly, yeah yeah. And then down here is just pure sand. So when you, when you get down, like you can tell when the plants actually get down to that sand, um, because they still kind of just stop growing. You more on the Sydney sandstone here? Yeah. Yeah. More on the Sydney sandstone. I don't have any clay, any clay here.
00:19:40
Speaker
Um, yeah. So it's, it's basically just sand. What does sustainable farming mean to you How do you incorporate regenerative practices into your garden?
00:19:51
Speaker
Sustainable farming, i think, is super broad and depends on your climate and microclimate. But here, um for this to be a sustainable system, I think it's really important to manage the water well and manage the soil well, including erosion and runoff, um because I am using mushroom compost and things like that.
00:20:10
Speaker
these sorts of products, it's important that you don't allow a lot of runoff and a lot of overhead spraying because, you know, that will affect the gully and the beautiful little creek that's down at the bottom of the gully.
00:20:21
Speaker
So um that's why there is a lot of buffer of all the black grass and that sort of these deep rooted plants to help filter anything that's running out of this garden.
00:20:32
Speaker
touching on that too, using all sustainable and regenerative practices. So um no dig or trying not to disturb the soil as much as possible, um not using any chemical sprays and um amendments and things like that.
00:20:46
Speaker
If I do use any amendments, they're always organic it or they are made on site. out of things like weeds and stuff like that. yeah So I use a lot of effective microorganism sprays to try and boost the actual soil activity to then feed the plants. So again, focusing on the soil being healthy and happy, and then that will create a by-product of healthy and happy plants. so Feeding the soil to feed the plants. Exactly. Not feeding the plants with chemical fertilisers. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, not having that beautiful big green leaf that actually has no nutrients in it. Yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
It's like feeding the soil. And i actually do have a microscope. I don't get it out nearly often enough. I was in a regenerative agriculture mentorship program called RAMP through Southern Cross Uni. And I took the microscope to another farm in Robertson and we looked at... um you know, their compost versus my compost and their soil but versus my soil. And it's so cool to see the differences, like their soil that they'd been working on for 20 years, the amount of fungal content in it compared to like soil that I've only been working on for two years.
00:21:51
Speaker
And it was just so cool to see like light night and day, the difference and how much like the work can pay off. Yeah. Yeah. yeah It's really cool. Yeah. So then how are you managing pests?
00:22:04
Speaker
Um, I'm just really lucky. that's No, i I, mean here I'm just trying to take a whole system approach. yeah So obviously I've got bush all around me. So I've got birds, birds galore, birds all the time.
00:22:19
Speaker
Um, amazingly, I haven't had that many issues with bowel birds. Like sometimes I'll see them jumping through like the kale. They're another thing that looks after the cabbage moth for me, which is really cool. nice Yeah. They'll just, I'll just see them like hopping through and they'll have a beak full of cabbage moth worms. Like,
00:22:34
Speaker
cat caterpillars. It's amazing. Um, but I haven't seen any this season going for the tomatoes, which is cool. Yeah. Maybe it's cause they've never ripened. They're just sitting there just doing nothing.
00:22:45
Speaker
Um, but yeah, i get like big black cockatoos come over and there's usually about four, um, kookaburras sitting in these trees, just hanging out, come down and they'll grab mice. So mice are sometimes an issue with the compost and stuff. yeah My little dog does a good job on that too. Nice.
00:23:02
Speaker
um <unk> bars um I've got Fee's bees down here. She's just brought a heap of hives down, cool right down the bottom. um Not that they help that much with pests, but it's just nice to have more diversity of insects and things. Pollination, I suppose.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Pollination, healthy plants. um As I said before, I've got heaps of different types of wasps, which actually compete with the bees a bit, but I was going to say, being on the bush, you probably have a lot of native insects that going come and predate on anything that's trying to attack your veggies. saw a blue-banded bee yesterday, or the day before.
00:23:33
Speaker
i was so excited. Oh my God, amazing. Yeah, it up in the beans. I was like, no way.
Climate Impact on Farming
00:23:37
Speaker
The climate crisis or climate change, as it's known, is obviously impacting a lot of communities in Australia, including the mountains.
00:23:44
Speaker
Like, I don't know about what you've experienced, but I've certainly experienced things blooming out of season. Tomatoes not ripening. guys I've got the same issue. I have to take them off and ripen them inside in the windowsill. Yeah. um What kind of effects are you noticing?
00:23:59
Speaker
I mean, La Nina is a huge thing the last few years. Yeah. Yeah. um Just how how consistently it it can be and then you think you're in the clear and you're like, oh my God, we've had two weeks of sun. This is so nice. And then all of a sudden it's like rain for three weeks yeah or at least like fog or days like this. And I mean, that's why the tomatoes aren't really ripening and ah like some of them are orange there you can see, but they don't really get further than that unless I take them off and ripen them elsewhere, which, you know, I can do. And I i usually do anyway, because otherwise the pests can get get to them. Yeah.
00:24:33
Speaker
um I've put a lot more heirlooms in this year to try and sort of hit that market, but yeah, just they're on there for so long that the the risk is obviously like longer. The risk of um damage because they're such a big tomato as well. Like it only takes one bird to have one little peck and the whole thing's gone. Yeah, exactly. Or one little grub to get into it. and Exactly. um But yeah, I've definitely noticed things, yeah, bolting when they shouldn't or, um you know, the soil dries out a lot quicker from one day of um sun and then a bit of wind and just just, you know, you used to be able to say, don't plant your tomatoes until the running of the Melbourne Cup.
00:25:10
Speaker
And then now it's like, well, actually, we're probably going to get a really weird hot spell and you could get away with planting them earlier or there won't be a frost until this date or... I don't know, it is a huge risk. It's so hard to know now yeah what's going to happen and it is, um, makes it really hard to plan. Yeah.
00:25:26
Speaker
Which has led me to plant things that, you know, like, um, kale and a lot of silverbeet, cause it doesn't matter if that gets frost yeah anyway and it'll be fine. But now I'm noticing that I probably need to rotate families in, in the garden a bit more because I'm getting issues with Circuspora or a black rot and things like that. So that's another challenge to add to it.
00:25:48
Speaker
And you're right, it's like it's not necessarily just the rain constantly, but it's the days like today that are just overcast and you, you know, you then tomorrow it'll be like 35 degrees and lasting sun and then the wind will come through and rip any moisture out of everything. and Yeah. um Yeah, right, it's just hard to plan and I'm glad I'm not the only one. Yeah, yeah, and it's perfect disease breeding conditions. Yeah, you know wet, hot. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like we're just basically one big agar plate.
00:26:17
Speaker
I'm just breeding all the different bacterias. um So on that note, I suppose, like you conduct workshops within the community. you invite people down to your farm.
00:26:28
Speaker
um You teach them how to grow healthy food for themselves. That might be a bit of a challenge then with what you were just talking about. But what actually inspired you to bring people through your property and show them how to grow the healthy food, show them how to care for land and care for the soil?
00:26:47
Speaker
um I think there's a few parts to that answer. I have always had a background in teaching, like unofficial teaching. So when I was younger, I started um when I was in competing.
00:27:02
Speaker
and Let me start that again. When I was younger, I was riding horses and competing a lot. um And then, you know, I'd grow out of horses or ponies and I'd be like, oh, mom, we can't sell.
00:27:13
Speaker
We can't sell penny. so mom would be like, OK, well, you better start giving lessons on her so she can pay her way. So I started giving lessons on my old ponies. um And that was really nice to connect with community that way.
00:27:25
Speaker
Um, because then it meant that people that couldn't have their own ponies in, you know, horses in this area, which there are actually a lot around, like just down the valley there, there's a few ponies. Um, anyway, and yeah, so people would come to my parents' property to come for horse riding lessons. So I've sort of always had that like open home, come and use, you know, we're so lucky to have what we have. So come and like, we'll share it with as many people as we can.
00:27:51
Speaker
um And then I think that sort of carried over. I really missed during COVID when, you know, no one was allowed to visit the farm. No one, when I was out at Hebron and it's such a beautiful property.
00:28:02
Speaker
um Luckily we did have Airbnbs on that property. So when things opened back up, we started having like guests coming back to the farm and I could be like, okay, come for a walk down to the garden and they'd pick their dinner and stuff like that. So yeah, I was really, I've always sort of had that um teaching nature. I was a i learned to swim coach for a while too. So just always connecting with people and trying to pass on the skills and that sort of thing.
00:28:27
Speaker
And then, yeah, I knew I wanted that to be part of my model. When I bought the farm up here, um I wanted to have a space that was um sort of small enough for people to relate to and feel comfortable in.
00:28:41
Speaker
So actually have another plot in Bullerborough that is a small market garden and that's really good for teaching in because it's really, um yeah, like a really tight little micro market garden in a way and it's got a little greenhouse and quail and it just gives people this vision of like, oh, if I only have 15 metres squared,
00:28:59
Speaker
I can actually produce enough food for 10 families, you know, and consistently. And if I can like plan it this way and I really wanted to be able to sort of have that demonstration farm.
00:29:09
Speaker
So where we're sitting now is more the
Balancing Profitability and Sustainability
00:29:12
Speaker
production farm. um I don't invite people here that often or when I do, it's like, quite, um, structured. Um, but the, yeah, the Boulevard plot is where I host like my seasonal workshops.
00:29:24
Speaker
So it's all about like, you can do this at your own home. So I call it a grow at home workshop. Nice. Yeah, it's good. And that's usually a group of between five and 10 people at one time. So nice and small.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yeah. And they're just offs. Yeah, I mean, they're they're similar workshop each time, but they're very seasonal based. So last the last one I did was all about tomato pruning um for your seasonal, like, yeah, getting through summer basically. Because everyone always says that. They're like, I've just got so many tomatoes and they're not ripening. And I'm like, same here, but you can actually do a few things to, you know, give the plant a bit more um structure and help along the way.
00:30:01
Speaker
um But then in winter I did one or coming into winter, i did one about um how to make a greenhouse and how to create a hot compost inside the greenhouse to heat it. And, you know, things like that, where it's like little skills that people might um yeah be able to apply in their own home or how to, yeah, even just setting up a greenhouse or giving them the confidence to do that.
00:30:19
Speaker
That's cool. Yeah. We'll go into people's homes and consult with them on, you know, i guess, positioning of the veggie patch and soil and all of those kinds of things. How do you find that process?
00:30:32
Speaker
Um, I think it's so, um, individual it depends on the person and how much work and or help they actually need. yeah Um, but yeah, some people will come into it with like this absolutely blank slate of like, I just bought this property and I want to put in a veggie patch that feeds me and my two kids and my husband.
00:30:49
Speaker
And you know, then it's like, all right, sweet. Here's the design. Here's where I'd place it. Um, if you need help installing it, let me know. and then yeah, I can sort of help them every step along the way. Yeah.
00:31:01
Speaker
And then you'll have sort of the opposite end where it's like, we've been here for 30 years and we've tried gardening in every corner of this garden and we don't know what to do it works and nothing works. And we also only have 30 seconds of free time per day. Like, okay, sweet. Well, maybe a veggie box might see.
00:31:19
Speaker
um Or like maybe just having some herbs at, you know, wherever you get out of your car each day. That's where you should put just some herbs and maybe, you know, i don't know, some salad greens. Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
And just sort of helping coach people through that they don't have to have a farm to be able to, you know, provide for their family, provide some fresh greens for their family. uh yeah it's very it's very individual and it's also very broad through you know from glenbrook that ah one of my clients is down in glenbrook then up to mount victoria it's like 10 different zones within that yeah yeah yeah it's crazy for anyone who doesn't know the mountains has like the widest ranging um climactic zones so down the bottom it would be almost like a warm temperate yeah
00:32:04
Speaker
hot temperate. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then all the way at the top, it's almost just a straight out cool climate. Short summers. Yeah. Short summers and super, um, like foggy, misty, wet, you know, up there. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Until it's not.
00:32:20
Speaker
And then it's fiery and dry. Yeah. And then hot as hell and blistering heat and windy. and yeah um So in your view, why is it important for people today to reconnect with the source of their food?
00:32:32
Speaker
um I think a lot of people are trying harder in life to, you know, be a bit more sustainable, be a bit more thoughtful in what they eat, whether it be for their bodies or for the environment. And I think connecting, trying to connect with the food means that you're going to try and source local and you're going to try and source or like find out who the farmers are in the area.
00:32:52
Speaker
So you get to like physically connect, but mentally connect, um socially connect with other people that are keen to look after their bodies and that sort of thing. But yeah, I think supporting a local economy as well.
00:33:04
Speaker
So if you're paying a farmer who's living in your area, means that that farmer's spending that money in your area as well. So you end up with this thriving local economy. yeah And i think that really shone through during COVID, yeah especially in the mountains. Like a lot of people, you know, were really rallying to support local, which was really cool. So it was such a good thing to see it wasn't it? Yeah, it was really nice.
00:33:23
Speaker
Yeah. So what role do you think community-based agriculture plays in addressing broader issues with food security? Um, I think that comes back to like eating within your bio region as well. Um, so again, yeah, supporting the local economy around you means that you've got sustainable systems in place for the next pandemic, you know, and things like that. So i think, um, teaching people to grow their own, obviously just, it gives you instant food security within your own backyard.
00:33:53
Speaker
But then if you can have, you know, a street of people who are all growing ah different crop each or two different crops each. And that creates that like community bond of, hey, I've got heaps of basil at the moment.
00:34:05
Speaker
um You've got heaps of coriander, let's swap. And it means you also get that like mental health exchange of like the chat over the fence with the neighbor, the communication, which um I think a lot of people have lost.
00:34:17
Speaker
um the confidence almost um to just say hello to someone in the street or say like, oh, your garden looks great or, you know, something along those How do you do that? Yeah, exactly. yeah The sharing of knowledge and the sharing of the community spirit, um which I think, yeah, the community-based agriculture really supports and teaching people and passing on knowledge really supports as well.
00:34:40
Speaker
You know, if you're taking it on that basis of like that group, that street that's all growing, you know one or two different crops, you're kind of building almost community sufficiency. Yeah. Not like self-sufficiency, which is, I don't know about you. I think it's, you've got it here, obviously, because you're a market gunner, but it's very hard in like a yeah very small space to be completely self-sufficient and grow everything you need. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm, I still wouldn't call this self-sufficient at all. Cause like I, I would love some eggs and some milk and so, you know, a few other things, but I don't have enough room for a cow, you know, but we could keep a cow in the neighbor's yard and someone over there could keep sheep and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you canins with yeah yeah So you can definitely do it on a small scale.
00:35:23
Speaker
So changing tack just a little bit, obviously your market garden is a business, right? So how do you balance the demands of being profitable with, ah you know, your passion for sustainability and community mindedness?
00:35:37
Speaker
How do those two things kind of interplay with each other?
Economic Challenges in Organic Farming
00:35:41
Speaker
um Well, I suppose suppose securing the land um was a community act in itself. So it's a family friend that owns the land and then I lease it off her really, really casual lease. I just pay the water bill for here and the house and that's my lease.
00:35:56
Speaker
Great. And I look after the, like I maintain the property. um And so that makes it ah like already a lower cost to create a sustainable system or sustainable business system.
00:36:09
Speaker
Then you want to sort of think about the sale of the product itself, um which brings me to produce just getting cheaper and cheaper because um agriculture is getting bigger and bigger and less and less sustainable in a way because people are expecting produce to like keep being really cheap.
00:36:29
Speaker
They expect it to be as cheap as coals and woolies, um which is still they're getting ridiculous profits out of things and paying farmers so poorly. So it means that it's really hard for small scale organic farmers to make a living wage um because because of that miscommunication about what the product actually costs to produce by hand.
00:36:52
Speaker
If I had a tractor and I was doing everything by tractor, I'd be able to do it cheaper, but I would be ruining my soil and then I'd be really putting my foot in it for my long term. um sort of profitability because over time I would have to put more and more chemical on.
00:37:05
Speaker
I'd have to sort of work the soil harder and harder. Whereas as if at the moment I'm working the soil less and less and I'm getting more and more out of it. So yeah, it's a sort of catch-22 that farmers have to go through.
00:37:17
Speaker
But yeah, the business itself, um I suppose the biggest challenge would be yeah just educating consumers on what it actually costs to grow good food and to grow healthy food and to pay people to you know grow that food. The things you buy at Coles and Woolies are often very low nutrient. If they've come from Australia, that's probably one thing. But if they're coming from overseas, they're being sprayed with chemicals as they come into the country. Exactly. um So yeah, they're cheap, but they're not feeding and nourishing your body. Yeah, yeah. Whereas the quality of the food that you grow, you know, you get I guess it's you get what you pay for, isn't it? Yeah, 100%.
00:37:53
Speaker
You like, you should be able to eat, you know, if you had a silver beet leaf from here and it's a silver beet leaf from Coles and Woolies, it's grown conventionally. the nutrient density in each of those products should be very different. So if it's grown here, one, because it's picked and delivered within like three or four hours of being picked yeah from my garden, whereas if coals and woolies, it's in a truck for a night and then it's in a warehouse for a night and then it's on the shelf for a night and then you eat it. Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, sometimes 72 hours old just for, you know, fresh greens, what what we call fresh in quotation marks, greens, whereas if some products are frozen and then, you know, sent...
00:38:31
Speaker
But yeah, the nutrient density makes a huge difference and and the amount of like love and care that goes into the soil then is shown in the nutrient density. um So you should be able to eat a leaf of silverbeet from a local garden and feel fuller and feel better than if you ate a leaf of silverbeet that's 72 hours old and it's just basically water and cellulose. yeah There's nothing else to it. Yeah.
00:38:53
Speaker
And then you get the problem with Colesmol was putting leafy greens in particular in plastic. Yeah, it kills me. Yeah. all Not only for the single-use plastic of it all, but the fact that that's just not the best way to store it either. That just turns it to mush, makes them sweat. Yeah, it's gross. Yeah, it's gross.
00:39:12
Speaker
And like people just don't realise, or they realise and they just don't care. don't know, it's strange. It's a weird world we live in. It really is where convenience is the biggest seller, you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Marketing and Community Engagement
00:39:25
Speaker
um I suppose on the weird world thing, being a business owner these days is being a creative. You've got no option but to market yourself. Yeah. How do you market your market a garden and yourself and all all your problems courses and products that you provide?
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mostly just rely on Instagram and Facebook ah posting in like local groups and amazingly flyers like posters flyers have the best sort of ability to market events.
00:39:53
Speaker
um So I've got most bookings when I do flyers, i get the most bookings. Like in people's letterboxes? No, just like at the co-op or like on community notice boards and things. Oh. And I think that really speaks to the demographic of the mountains. Yeah. There's a lot of like anti-social media, you know, people who don't have a Facebook account and stuff and that's fine.
00:40:11
Speaker
um But yeah, it's taken me a little while to realize that and accept that. Yeah. um But yeah, mostly and and just word of mouth, like a lot of word of mouth. I'm really lucky that like the clients that I do have, if I'm running a workshop, they'll repost it or they'll, you know, tell their friends and that's really nice.
00:40:26
Speaker
So, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think word of mouth travels a lot further than Instagram posts. Yeah, yeah. People really value that referral. exactly. The friend referral. Yeah. Yeah. So the Instagram thing is like an interesting thing because there is like a big gardening community on there. But I i feel that personally, I feel that like algorithm is just the death of genuine creativity. And I suppose, you know,
00:40:51
Speaker
Gunning is such a fulfilling thing that feeds your soul that then to turn around and put it through a screen almost feels very alien in a way. Yeah. um And I think there's a big disconnect between the two.
00:41:05
Speaker
Yeah. Do you find that the constraints of having to run a business online impacts the way that you actually want to be running your physical business? Yeah, absolutely. I found for a little while there, I was like, okay, I'm really going focus on Instagram and creating good reels. And, um, I had a few like business coaches being like, you need to create a Tik TOK, like you'll do so well and all this and YouTube and all that. And I was like, yeah, I know. i I know I'm good at talking to the camera.
00:41:30
Speaker
I just, I'd rather be doing the thing, you know, I'd rather be just getting this job done and not have to set up a tripod and video it and then edit it and everything. And then that led me to um getting a virtual assistant from the Philippines for a little while and... Oh!
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was fun. Like, she learnt a lot. I had to proofread things a lot. Yeah, And that really ended up taking up more time. And I was like, you know like, thank you so much for your help, but it's just not going to work because it's... To do blog posts and things like that? Yeah, and just content. So it was, you know, I would be able to just take a heap of videos of me saying, like, these are spring onions, and if you cut them like this, this will happen, rah, rah, rah. And then I just sent it all to her, and she would create the reel and then post it for me and that sort of stuff.
00:42:15
Speaker
stuff that I could do and I did was doing but it just took off you know one less thing for me to do yeah yeah yeah until I'd be like okay there's a spelling error here and this fact isn't right and you definitely use chat GPT for that yeah like that and I was just like oh gosh so yeah and then since then I kind of just really dropped off on the the old reels but when I do post a reel it's usually very educational and very like oh I'll be pruning tomatoes and you know, show a video about that. This is how you do it. And I get really good feedback when I do do it.
00:42:46
Speaker
I love your content. Yeah. I think you do. You're right. You do present well on camera and your content is really informational. Yeah. And casual enough. I find, I think so approachable. Yeah, yeah absolutely.
00:42:59
Speaker
but yeah, I think it is a real struggle. Like business now isn't just doing the thing. Yeah. You got to do all the other things, you know, you got to be a, you know, What do they call it? triple thing acting like a trip triple threat. Yeah. Yeah. yeah able to Sing, dance and act.
00:43:15
Speaker
Yep. And film it. Yeah, exactly. And then do your invoices at the end of the day and reconcile them. yeah like oh three ah Which, yeah, which I also do all of that. And it's great to be able to be in control of everything. But if God, it's exhausting. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because the business sort of has three parts.
00:43:36
Speaker
It's like the market gardening, the actual produce. And then I've got the workshops and then I've got sort of education, like subcontracting
Education and Gardening for Children
00:43:45
Speaker
education. So I teach in childcare centres down in Sydney.
00:43:48
Speaker
And then I also do a lot of permaculture teaching for other permaculture courses. So tell me about the um educating in childcare centres. I guess you're teaching kids about how to grow healthy food and what that means for them and...
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah. um So I have a semi-exclusive relationship with the To Be Me Early Learning Centres in Sydney at the moment. It's so rewarding. Yeah. It's exhausting, but it's rewarding.
00:44:14
Speaker
I should say you've just come and met me here from that. So thank you. So I did have dirt over my face prior to being here. I probably still do. Yeah. Yeah, i go to the centres and the kids sort of otherwise don't have any connection to gardens or food.
00:44:32
Speaker
yeah So really lucky that these centres have installed gardens for me to teach from at the centres. So there's a rooftop garden, which is awesome, and they've got some fruit trees and we've just put a native garden in today, which is really cool. Cool. Got veggie gardens, worm farm, composts, all the things, you know, which is great.
00:44:49
Speaker
And it gives the chance for the kids to... um see the process of growing food start to finish. There's also chefs on site at these childcare centers, which is so bougie.
00:45:00
Speaker
um That is bougie. But yeah, you know, each time the kids come, they'll be like, oh, okay, today we're going to harvest the radishes. And they'll all get a radish each and they'll all run it down to the chef. And the chef is like, wow, great.
00:45:11
Speaker
Thank you so much. And then, you know, he'll chop them up and put them through a salad or something like that for their afternoon tea. Which is just so, like, you just can't put a price on that. It's amazing for the kids to be able to do that, especially being, like, in Burwood and Five Dock where, like, they're in the city. They don't they don't get to see gardens ever. They've got no connection to, like, you know, where we're sitting right now.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And the amount of times I'm like, oh, God, it'd be good to get them out for an excursion. And then I think about, like, like they're literally three-year-olds, three- to five-year-olds. Like, imagine the...
00:45:43
Speaker
yeah a report you'd have to do. Like, oh, the chaos. It's really cool to be able to provide that service. But that's so rewarding. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. Yeah, it is. It's really good. And it's also just a bit of like stable income.
00:45:56
Speaker
Yeah. know, no matter what happens at the farm to the produce, I know that on Fridays I go down, I get to be, you know, in different weather conditions, but that's okay. And i will get paid. Yeah. Which is nice because it is, it's a reality of owning your own business. You know, like sometimes you just,
00:46:11
Speaker
It's wax and wane. Yeah, exactly. You have low points. Yes, absolutely. yeah Yeah. What is success to you then? And are you successful? ah Yeah, I think I'm successful in what I do at at the moment.
00:46:24
Speaker
um For me, I'm always always a bit of an overachiever. I always try hard to just push it further and further and further. So I'm always thinking about what's next. Um, for a little while there, I was going to open another farm and then, you know, manage three farms. I was just like, what am I doing? um I think this is a successful business. Well, people say it's successful cause it's lasted more than three years.
00:46:46
Speaker
There you go. I'm like, sweet. Okay. I'm done. I can hands off now. Um, i don't know. I come from a family of entrepreneurs or family of small business owners. So I feel like it's just sort of ingrained that work isn't done at the end of yeah five o'clock.
00:47:03
Speaker
So for listeners who might be inspired to start their own either small garden in their backyard or something on the scale of what you've done here, what advice would you have for them?
00:47:15
Speaker
um Just observe first and act second. So observe where the sun goes in your garden and observe how much rain you get or how much fog you get.
00:47:25
Speaker
um Do you get a really hard frost? Do you not get a really hard frost? Because information like that, that Mother Nature gives you is so vital for growing food.
Advice for New Gardeners
00:47:36
Speaker
um And if you can observe first, you might actually just be able to sidestep a few issues, you know, like placing a raised garden bed in the wrong spot um or noticing that you have a resident opossum, so you might not want to grow peaches right next to your garden.
00:47:52
Speaker
Things like that. um Yeah, so observe first and act second. And also don't be afraid to connect with people that are already doing it because they're so happy to talk about it. That's a good one. That's a really good one. Yeah.
00:48:06
Speaker
Connecting with other people is so important in the journey. Vital to gardening, I think. Absolutely. have to share information because the more you actually, I've found, the more you actually talk about gardening, the more it locks it in yourself, the knowledge it locks in.
00:48:20
Speaker
On the environmental things of observing as well, I find that, um, not looking at the calendar so much, but observing the climate and certain changes that are happening around you to give you clues for things, as opposed to Yeah.
00:48:38
Speaker
Oh, it's spring. We better shove the, you know. Yeah, exactly. know, like all the blossoms are out. Therefore the soil must be warm enough for this. Yeah. Things like that. Generally. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Generally it works. Yeah.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:48:50
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me today. no problem. i Really nice. Good chat. Yeah. Great. Yeah. And thank you for having me down here. This is so beautiful. oh No worries. I love it. Yeah. It's good to have you here. It's good to share it with people.
00:49:03
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me today. If you like the show, don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button, tell a friend or two, or maybe even give the show five-star rating and a review.
00:49:14
Speaker
If you want more gardeners lodge content, you can find our website, our Instagram and our TikTok in the show notes below this episode. The gardeners lodge podcast is a growing media production.