BEES

What can I say about bees.

Barry the bee man who has been a beekeeper all his life has few words about them. He is still learning and surprised and intrigued.

Barry used to bring us bee hives every spring for our apple orchard pollination. We would pay him to bring them for a few months and then he would take them back, actually take them somewhere warmer for winter as he reckons they don't do too well here over the cold wet months. A few years ago I thought it would be a good idea if they moved in here permanently.

So we now have a few hundred thousand bees.

We are just beginners and are trying to learn as much as we can about a society that is so extremely complex that the more we learn the more our minds boggle. I think the reality is that we can never really understand what is going on

We listen and read and learn. 

Here we are checking the hives, and putting a new box on top of each one with a queen excluder between so that we can hopefully share some of their honey toward the end of summer. 

Oh by the way as part of my helicopter hobby I've also got a GoPro camera recently, and am loving it. This was all shot on this tiny little camera that can go anywhere.

Do you love bees?

Do you love honey?

Do you love GoPos?

Cheers 

Farmer Bren.

Free Range?

Free Range Eggs

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago got me thinking. I don't actually read the newspaper or watch the news on TV. I call it the bad news. I'll never forget an interview I heard once with a psychologist who was not surprised at the the number of people who struggle through their day having been woken by their clock radio telling them all the bad things that are happening in the world.

Wow I can see how people can digress in this blog thing.

What are Free Range Eggs?

I should have the answers. Some of the facts are relatively simple:

Certified Organic eggs are always free range. Something that I find people still don't understand. There are 7 different certifiers and logos in Australia.

Free Range Farmers Association , FREPA , Humane Choice, and others have strict regulations limiting numbers between 750 to 1500 hens per hectare. Check the Sustainable Table's site for a good comparison table.

Stocking rate is important but doesn't actually take into account grazing management.

Certified Organic producers are independently audited and inspected every year. As for the others, it's not so clear.

Eggs that say Free Range but don't have any Accreditation Logo could be anything.

But even these facts aren't that simple to find, or to understand, and I'll admit I might not even have the facts all right, and I am an egg farmer.

No wonder the consumers are bewildered and choice has made a super complaint (great name) about the situation.

Understandably producers are scrambling to identify themselves, with new labels such as Pasture Ranged Organic, and Beyond Organic. But I'm not sure if this helps or just adds to the confusion. I mean what exactly is beyond organic anyway?

If you're waiting for my wise conclusion you might have to wait till I'm older and more cynical because as I heard Tim Minchin say recently to his old Uni;

"A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse-holes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this… but I would add that opinions differ significantly from arse-holes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.

We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others.
Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out onto the verandah and beat them with a cricket bat.
Be intellectually rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privilege."

I think these may be some of the wisest words I've heard in a while, and what this means to me is that I don't have the answers, I'm still trying to figure it all out.

I could tell you that the best thing to do would be to get to know you're local farmer, shop at farmers markets, do you're research, even visit the farms you buy from, and these things probably will help you make an informed choice.

Or I could say that you should raise your own chickens and that is the ultimate way to know where you're eggs come from.

BUT I don't believe I should tell you to do anything. Do what you want. If it's important to you you will try, like me, to figure it out for yourself and not be told what is best for you.

Well what a rant. When you sit down and start writing like this it can certainly open up a can of worms, but as the earth would not exist without worms, maybe that's a good thing.

Cheers,

Farmer Bren

moving the chooks along

This Friday the Blackwood flock of chickens, above, will leave our farm and make their home on another organic farm a couple of hours away.

I'm guessing that apart from the drive, the Blackwoods wont notice much of a difference between their old and their new homes at all. They'll travel along as usual dust bathing, eating, drinking, scratching for bugs, laying eggs, hanging out with their hen buddies and when dark comes, they'll even go to roost in the same houses they have since they came to live with us a year ago when they were one day old.

Our lives on the other hand will be very different indeed. 

The Blackwoods are the last flock to leave our farm and for the first time in years we will be down from 2,000 chooks to just 200. From 10 Maremma dogs to two. From two wonderful farmer boys to none.

This Friday marks the next stage in our organic farming adventure.

We're excited (and a little bit scared), we're happy (and a little bit sad), but we're really ready.

Hopefully our extra time will be spent trying to find a bit more of a self sufficient balance. Making, growing and doing more, and buying less. Hopefully scaling down the business will mean we'll have more time for other plans. And hopefully someday soon, the places we deliver to will stop calling us the egg man and lady.

So it is with much happiness for them and for ourselves that we farewell the Blackwoods.

Stay tuned for the next adventures.

xx

PS We have a pallet load of poultry netting, as seen above, arriving from England any day now. Available for sale mid October. Please watch this space for details if you are interested.

See you on Saturday

Hello!

Long time no see.

So here's my idea; why don't you come along to the Collingwood Children's Farm farmer's market this Saturday between eight and one and see us for real. In person.

How much fun would that be!

We could chat, you could buy some gorgeous heirloom variety beetroot and some eggs, all certified organic and of course delicious. And while you are there your kids could dance around with the buskers, you could stock up on the freshest, seasonal, farmer's market goodies and make a morning of it.

See you there?

Hope so.

Foxs Lane.

Hello!

I've been struggling lately to work on both my blogs.
So for the moment I have decided to blog almost all of the time at Foxs Lane.
I'd love you to come and join me over there.

Just click on this link: http://foxslane.blogspot.com.au/

See you soon. x

Market report.

We're back at farmers' markets.
Hooray!
We're starting the season at Collingwood Children's Farm farmers' market on the second Saturday of the month and will see how we go.

We packed the trailer and drove down to Melbourne.
We woke up really early and drove to the farm.
We took our usual place between Warialda Beef and Baw Baw Organics.
We put up the marquee and the tables and signs and prettied it all up with some bunting and table cloths.
We caught up with and chatted to fellow stall holders.
And then we drank coffee and waited for the gates to open.

We had the most wonderful market.
We caught up with so many friends old and new.
We ate pancakes and spanikopita and icy poles and ice cream.
We bought a whole crate of food for home.
We swapped lots of produce for eggs too.
Miss Indi worked on our stall and Miss Jazzy and Miss Pepper worked with Anne Marie at Holy Goat.
And we sold out of eggs before the end of the day.
We loved it.

The next Collingwood Children's Farm farmers' market is on on the 11th of Feb.
More details here.
We hope to see you there.

In the meantime there's a fantastic recipe for Herby Whole Egg Mayo on Ruth's blog today.
Check it out here.

See ya. x

currant cordial.

1kg currants.
500gms sugar.
500gms water.
1 lemon - juice and skin.
(half the quantities works just as well too.)

Wash/sterilise bottle.
Place currants, sugar and water in a saucepan on the stove on a low heat.
Stir occasionally until the sugar melts.
Add the juice of the lemon and the skin.
Simmer for 5 - 10 minutes.
Stand aside to cool.
Pass mixture through a strainer.
Bottle.
Enjoy with sparkling water and ice. Yum!
or
Enjoy with a shot of vodka. Yum!
Keep refrigerated when not in use.

From all of us at Daylesford Organics, we wish you the most wonderful, happy, healthy and bountiful 2012. xx

Green manure.

I took the photo above about a year ago. It was meant to accompany a blog post I had been thinking about writing about soil. About how much of the farming that we do at Daylesford Organics is not really about the fruit and vegies and eggs we produce, but about the soil they grow/feed/live on.

I was going to talk about how we at Daylesford Organics actually consider ourselves soil farmers. Our work is to constantly improve the soil. To make it healthy and full of nutrients so that it can then do it's own important work.

We swear by this soil philosophy. We observe our soil, we add micro organisms and organic matter and compost teas. We use the chooks to fertilise and we obsessively make and dig in compost. And we don't overwork our precious soil. We let it rest in between plantings and we often plant crops that we plow in to feed and nurture it.

We try to listen and nurture.

After ten years of organic farming and the worst season of farming we have experienced, we decided it was time to look after the farmers of the soil. After the steepest learning curve of moving from the city to become farmers. After building up the wonderful business that is Daylesford Organics and after experiencing some of the biggest highs and some pretty awful lows, we decided it was time to look after us.

To plant a green manure crop.

So in July of this year, our family of five left the farm and drove off in an old caravan we had renovated. We drove up the centre of Australia and are now on our way down the west coast.

We are looking after the farmers. We are taking some time out to look at things from the outside. We are talking a lot about possible new directions we as an organic farm can take. And we are getting inspired all over again.

We are so lucky and grateful to farmers Liam and Pierre for keeping things going while we travel. You guys are ace! x

We have got some exciting plans to put into action when we return so watch this space.

In the mean time feel free to follow our caravan adventure here on my other blog.

See you soon.

Dear Delicious magazine,

We are sad to have to inform you that Daylesford Organics will not be submitting an entry into this year’s Delicious Produce Awards.

In a world of celebrity chefs and chefs hat awards for restaurants, we think it’s wonderful that your magazine has an award that celebrates the producers.

Our win in the From The Earth category in 2009 and our gold medal in 2010 for our heirloom veggies have been among the highlights of our ten years in business.

Although the past growing season began with great promise, things soon changed. Our market gardens were flooded three times in four months; and we experienced high humidity, not enough sunshine or warmth, and so much rain we considered building an ark. By the time the locusts arrived there wasn’t anything much left for them to devour.

Last year we submitted a rainbow of heirloom vegetables to be judged. So many colours and flavours, shapes and sizes. This year we don't have any produce to pull out of the ground in the submission time.

We are most disappointed for ourselves as well as for the many other heartbroken farmers around Australia who have been affected by the crazy weather.

We hope the judging of this year’s Produce Awards goes really well. We look forward to sending our entry next year.

With best wishes,

Kate and Brendon

Daylesford Organics

Roasted beetroot divine!

Happy weekend folks!

To celebrate weekend eve, we made the yummiest dinner. Every single ingredient except the olive oil and the feta was grown right here at Daylesford Organics and everything except the garlic was picked less than an hour before it was cooked.

Four colours of heirloom beetroot. From left: Detroit, White Blankoma, Golden, Chioggia.

Eshallots

Tossed together with some garlic and olive oil, baked for an hour and then served with a lettuce and fetta salad.

It doesn't get much better than that. Simple, colouful, fresh, seasonal, organic, delicious!

We hope you have the most wonderful weekend.

Day trip.

Early this morning we hit the road and took a drive to visit a couple of our newest customers.

First stop Colliban Food Store in Trentham. A gorgeous and glamerous new restaurant and food store just off the main street.

Paul the owner, came to see us about a year ago to tell us of his vision for the store and talk about what produce we could supply him. It was a sunny Autumn day and we stood around in the farm stall and chatted. It was a fantastic feeling today to see him and his team and his dream come true.

You can buy our eggs and seasonal vegies in the store to take home or you can have them cooked for you in the restaurant and eat them there.

Then we drove on to Kyneton and to deliver eggs to organic patisserie, Inner Biscuit.

That's Mara there at the coffee machine. Inner Biscuit is her gorgeous cafe. I love everything about her place. I love the way she's decorated it, I love that all her ingredients are organic, I love how friendly her and her staff are and I loved our coffees, lemon cookies and almond croissants. Yum!

I bet I'm not the only one to leave that place and consider starting an enamel tea pot collection.

All in all a wonderful day and some fabulous coffee. I think we might have to do a tour of some of our Melbourne customers soon.

Have a wonderful week.

Crimes of Farm Fashion Part 1.

I'll be back as soon as I get over those fluoro vests to tell you about the other fun stuff that's been going on here at Daylesford Organics lately. There's been honey collecting and spinning (possibly another fashion crime), preserving, 600 baby chickies, carrots, apples, beetroots and all sorts of other fun farm stuff.

See you soon.

ps stay tuned for baby chicken live cam.

Garlic bulbils.

Do you know what this is a photo of?

These are garlic bulbils or garlic flowers.

They grow from the top of the stalk of the hard neck varieties of garlic.

They start off white and as they dry out they become more and more purple.

Many farmers of hard neck garlic remove the bulbils as they are forming to promote the growth of the bulb below the ground. At Daylesford Organics we believe in allowing a plant to grow in its natural form so we leave the bulbils on the plant. Cutting them off is like cutting off its reproductive organs.

The advantage of not removing the bulbils is that we harvest them as well as the garlic cloves when they reach maturity.

There are several things you can do with these flowers.

You can replant them. This is an economical way of building up your planting stock. It will take two years of replanting for the bulbs to reach a decent size. Alternately you could plant the bulbils in your herb garden and harvest them as spring garlic, like spring onions.

The other use for the bulbils is the one we are most excited about and that is to eat.

Over the past few weeks we have been sprinkling these gorgeous seeds on salads, bruchettas, stir fries and eggs.

They look gorgeous as a garnish, they give that delicious garlic kick and all without the bother of having to peel them or prepare them in any way.

Can you tell we are excited!!

If you buy some garlic bulbils from us over the next few weeks, we would love you to share your own personal bulbil recipe with us. Please leave a comment on this blog or email us at kate@daylesfordorganics.com

See ya.

Optimistic.

I've been thinking lately that the dictionary definition for the word optimistic should include the word farmer and more specifically a farmer planting a crop.

When a farmer plants a crop she/he hopes for the perfect weather conditions to enable that crop to germinate, to grow and to thrive. It cannot be too hot, too wet, too cold or too humid. The farmer hopes that the irrigation pipes don't block or burst, that pests leave the crop alone, that there are no diseases, not too many weeds and enough water to irrigate it. He/she hopes that there is no flood or fire or wind storm. The farmer hopes that Mother Nature is kind and enables a delicious crop to be picked at the end of the growing season.

After a month of 'will we or wont we's', the last few days at Daylesford Organics were spent ploughing, laying irrigation lines and planting out a couple of gardens of carrots and beetroots.

Where other years we plant many, many different varieties of vegetables and lots of successions of each, this year we are most grateful to get anything in at all.

We are optimistic.

Fish?

We're still in clean up mode after the flood. We're chainsawing and pulling down and mulching and mowing. We're exploring and hunting for parts of our property that have washed away.

Yesterday Farmer Bren was walking around and found a fish. Just lying there in what used to be the market garden.

Maybe all those jokes about certified organic trout weren't so silly after all.

Have a great day.

Water.

At this time of the year my blog should be bursting at the seams with photos of gorgeous rainbows of fruit and vegetables. Hundreds of varieties in all different shapes and colours. This week last year I was blogging about beetroots and peas and rocket and radishes. This year you get the puppies.

This ain't no ordinary season. This certainly ain't no ordinary January.

Actually, the truth is so far in our ten years of organic farming we have learnt that there is no such thing as an ordinary year. Some years there's too much wind, some are too hot, some bring fires and other other crazy weather patterns. As farmers we have learnt to listen and watch and to adapt.

But until this year the one constant has been the respect and love we have to have for water. Water is good.

When we moved here we became self sufficient in our water supply for the first time. We have had to be mindful in washing and drinking and laundering and bathing even in the middle of winter, to ensure we have enough for the coming summer. Our house water comes from the rain that lands on our roof and is precious.

Farm water has always been a constant topic for discussion too. We have bores that fill dams, we have dams that fill irrigation systems and we have irrigation systems that are always being planned and fixed and tested and diagrammed and updated.

On a farm water is life giving, water is precious, water is the topic of so many discussions.

Most years the running joke around here is that Bren has another girlfriend called Tap who he is always rushing off to meet and spend time with.

But then this year something happened to turn our whole theory of water on its head.

We learnt that water can also be destructive. Water can ruin your plans, stop you from planting a crop, turn your crop to seed or to mush, it can take years of carefully maintained top soil and send it off down the creek. Water can be scary. Water is a contradiction.

And everywhere we go there are more crazy water stories. The lettuce grower who had to plow in ten acres of flooded lettuces, our neighbours at yesterday's farmers' market who had to sell so much of their strawberry crop as seconds, our friends Andrew and Jill who lost their entire crop and left a gap where their stall usually stands opposite us...I could go on and on, I'm sure you could too.

So now we are living through the rest of this crazy season. We are grateful for our chookens who continue to lay, that we don't have enormous machinery and input costs and that we never put a crop in so we didn't lose one. Our hearts go out to those less fortunate.

Please buy local where you can, buy direct from the farmer where possible and look out for those that are producing the food that you eat.