Heirloom beetroots and carrots.

It's the first day of winter here in Southern Australia and our little farm is full of rainbows.

Rainbows of heirloom beetroots. Five varieties.

And rainbows of heirloom carrots. Five varieties.

The vegetable cool room is on and full of crates of gorgeous certified organic vegies.

And the farmer boys are a blur of picking and washing and weighing and packing.

It's been a crazy season and we are about five months later than usual, but we are finally doing what organic vegie farmers do and wow it is fun!

Crimes of Farm Fashion Part 2.

Other possible titles for this post:

• We are finally harvesting rainbow carrots.
• Our two new green shipping containers arrived this morning.
• Can you believe they let me take this pic even after I told them I would be putting it on the Internet?
• Sorry girls, they are both happily married.

Crimes of Farm Fashion Part 1 is here.

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

Mercurio's menu tonight.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Victoria, Australia it is raining cats and dogs. We've had 33mm so far this weekend and it doesn't look like its stopping any time soon.

So when its so wet and horrible outside, what better way to spend the late afternoon than getting cozy inside and watching the episode of Mercurio's Menu filmed in Daylesford last March.

Its on channel 7 at 5.30pm tonight.

I blogged it way back here.

I wonder if you'll read my blog differently after you have heard my speaking voice.

Keep warm and dry out there and have a great weekend.

2010 Delicious Magazine Produce Awards.

We had such a fabulous night last Monday night at The 2010 Delicious Magazine Produce Awards at Circa @ The Prince.

There were 18 finalists in our category, From The Earth. 18 amazing growers and managers who we felt honoured to be included among.

For most of the night we hung out at the cheese table eating what is undoubtably the best cheese in Australia, La Luna. The Holy Goat girls, Carla and Anne-Marie, won the cheese category again this year.

We watched the foodie world as they mingled and shmoozed all around us. There were farmers and growers and chefs and food celebrities and all sorts of food lovers.

I read somewhere online that morning, (but I can't seem to find it now), an article telling people not to bother going out for dinner in Sydney that night as all the best chefs were heading down south for the awards. And they weren't wrong it was a whose who of the food world and it was wonderful to be a part of it.

Our gorgeous friend Matt Wilkinson was the amazing chef charged with showcasing all the wonderful finalists' produce and he certainly did us proud.

Rather than include our heirloom vegies in another dish, he made them the hero.

Our rainbow carrots, beetroots and baby turnips were only slightly cooked and looked gorgeous standing up proud in all their glory.

We didn't win our category outright this year, we won a gold medal, but by the way Matt Preston was gushing about our farm and our heirloom vegies we felt like winners anyway.

Yay!

Miranda Sharp and The Collingwood Childrens' Farm Farmers Market won the award for the Most Outstanding Farmers' Market.

Yay!

I discovered that farmer's wives don't wear frocks (except me).

From left Vicki Sher (Sher Wagyu), Lizette Snaith (Warialda Belted Galloway Beef), me, Miranda Sharp (Melbourne Farmers' Markets).

Probably the best part of the night though was sharing dinner after the ceremony with these gorgeous women and their partners and Matt and a few other producers. Usually we see these growers at farmers' markets where we are busy working, so it was wonderful to relax and have a drink and enjoy the night with them.

And soon enough it was time to take the party shoes off, get the farm gear back on and come back down to earth.

'Hi' to everyone who told me they read this blog. Thanks for the offers to take photos for me and for the encouragement. I hope you are settling back into your real life ok.

Have a great Wednesday.

Walking The Talk.

Are you interested to hear and see what goes on behind the scenes on an award winning organic farm?

Would you like to hear Daylesford Organics' Farmer Bren talk about his beloved chooks, heirloom vegies, organics, fruit trees, compost, soil and more?

As part of the Daylesford Macedon Produce Harvest Week, we will be holding two farm tours.

Date: Saturday 22 and Saturday 29th May.

Time: 2 - 4pm.

Place: Daylesford Organics. 19 Foxs Lane Muskvale.

Cost: $20per person, 15yrs and under free.

Booking: Email info@daylesfordorganics.com

Hopefully: See you then.

Scarlet runner beans.

We finished picking and selling the scarlet runner beans a few months ago. Over the season when we sold them to eat fresh we probably sold over a hundred kilograms.

Since then, we have left them on the vines to dry.

Today Liam picked the last of them off the vines.

Don't they look cute peeking out of their pod like that?

I think they are the most gorgeous looking bean.

Over the next few days we'll pod the beans, put our planting stock aside and then divide what's left into beans to sell and beans to use ourselves over winter.

The beans themselves can be used the same way you use any tinned or dried beans, in soups, stews, casseroles, pies...basically any winter dish you cook.

I've just eaten some for dinner fried up with some onion and garlic, a bit of tomato and some spices on toast. YUM!!

Delicious.

Farmer Bren's hands are clean today because we're doing our tax.

Liam's hands are dirty because he's planting the last lettuces of the season.

And we're in the latest issue of Delicious magazine that came out today.

In an article called pick of the crop, Matt Wilkinson, state judge for the Produce Awards and head chef at Melbourne's Circa, the Prince, showcases our heirloom vegetables in a vibrant salad.

I hope your week is getting off to a great start.

Farmer Bren's talk.

Last Saturday night Farmer Bren gave a talk about heirloom vegies and eating sustainably at the Home Ideas show.

We took lots of coloured vegies with us for the audience to see and taste.

Bren got a bit excited at times about his beloved carrots.

And of course he did the boring radish,

exciting radish trick with the Chinese Watermelon radish.

Winefoodhotel.com who sponsor the food stage filmed the talk and you can watch a few minutes of it below.

Finally, we at Daylesford Organics would like to congratulate our friends Nicholas and Tara of Embrasse restaurant on the birth of Louis. Welcome to the parenting adventure guys.

Have a great weekend.

Shortlisted!

We have been shortlisted for the Vogue Entertaining + Travel Produce Awards for 2010 and this is a photo of the produce we are sending to Sydney for the final judging next Monday.

Last year we won the From The Earth category for our heirloom vegies and won a gold medal in the From The Paddock section for our eggs.

Its hard to believe that a whole year has passed since we were in the middle of all this last year. Its all a bit exciting.

To taste some of this gorgeous certified organic produce, come and visit us at the farm stall here on Sunday, or come to Collingwood Childrens' Farm farmers' market tomorrow. To listen to Farmer Bren talking about heirloom vegies and eating sustainably, come to Melbourne Exhibition Centre tomorrow night at 5.30.

Hope to see you soon and have a great weekend.

Bren @ The Home Ideas Show.

We've just unloaded three of these pallet loads of egg cartons this morning.

Each pallet is made up of 28 bundles of egg cartons, each bundle contains 130 egg cartons which equals 3640 cartons per pallet. Which means, this morning we have unloaded 10,920 egg cartons and stacked them neatly into the shipping container for storage.

These cartons will eventually hold 131,040 eggs.

Are you interested in finding out some more information about the intricacies of running an award winning, certified organic farm?

Farmer Bren will be giving a talk and answering questions this Saturday the 10th of April at the Home Ideas Show at Jeff's shed. He'll be on the stage at 5.30 pm and will be discussing heirloom vegies and eating sustainably.

So why don't you come along?

Its sure to be interesting and if not you can poke funny faces at him and try to make him laugh.

Sunday at the farm stall.

Bren's Mum asked me to do a post showing what produce we have in season at the moment, so I thought I'd take you on a tour of the farm stall today and show you.

We have basil,

rainbow carrots,

Rainbow chard/silver beet top left and rocket just in front of it.

We have pullet eggs, large eggs and extra large eggs.

We have turnips,

garlic,

red onions,

eshallots,

and four more varieties of onions.

Not in the photo but also available are beetroots and radishes.

Coming soon are potatoes, swedes and kale.

I hope you are having a great weekend.