Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #20 - A Family Food Forest Wonderland | Andrea & James [Vast Harvest Permaculture]

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#20 - A Family Food Forest Wonderland | Andrea & James [Vast Harvest Permaculture] · The Shed Organics Show

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the shared
0:04
organics show with myself, Jordan.
0:07
Today we're talking to Andrea and James from Vast harvest
0:13
permaculture. Now these guys are a family run
0:18
farm and they have an enormous property down well, as they say,
0:24
about an hour N from Newcastle in NSW and they're on some land
0:30
that was quite desolate and and I guess dead with not much
0:35
growing around, a lot of monocrop agriculture in the
0:38
area. And these guys have transformed
0:41
it into a bit of a permaculture haven.
0:44
They are focused on food forests and have an enormous food forest
0:49
that they've been working on, and they also grow a lot of
0:53
vegetables and are very much into their herbs and into their,
0:58
I guess, medicinal properties and things like this.
1:01
So there are so many things that these guys are doing and it's
1:05
very, very exciting to see them on this journey and to see how
1:09
they're going to be progressing. I'm going to link all of their
1:12
links down in the description below as usual, so please go and
1:16
check those out. If any of this resonates with
1:19
you, I'm sure you're going to get a lot out of this
1:21
conversation. This is a lovely mother and son
1:24
conversation. It was so nice to have two
1:26
people on the podcast this week. So let's jump straight into the
1:31
conversation with James and Andrea from Vast Harvest
1:36
Permaculture. One thing that I think is
1:54
amazing about your content and the fact that it's family
1:59
orientated and you know, we've got mother and son, correct.
2:04
Yeah, Yep. Like I don't know how my mom
2:08
would go with me working with her, but maybe James, you can
2:14
start with us, if that's all right, you can let us know
2:16
what's it like working with mom and like how how do you guys
2:22
share the load in terms of, you know, promotion of the business
2:26
and all that kind of thing? And don't tell people I'm bossy.
2:30
She's. She's not.
2:33
She's not bossy, no, but we're, well, it's, it's great because
2:36
mum does a lot of like the inside and herbal side of it.
2:40
She'll make all the soaps and everything that we need to and
2:42
process stuff. She's always in the garden
2:45
though, so she knows like the veggie garden better than I do.
2:48
But I'm always in the food forest type of thing.
2:50
Then there's Dad and Drew, and they also work on the farm.
2:56
Awesome. So yeah, we all have our own
3:00
roles, but they all sort of get jumbled up amongst things
3:04
depending on the type of day it is.
3:06
If it's raining then most of us are going to be inside doing
3:09
stuff if it's editing or even doing a lot of the herbal stuff.
3:16
Yeah, cool. That's obviously, you know, with
3:19
a family environment, it's probably easier to become a bit
3:22
of a team and kind of, you know, understand each other's interest
3:27
and where where your skills lie and that type of thing and which
3:30
things you can do. How come?
3:33
How come it's sort of a focus for you to as opposed to like
3:38
family farm May? Is that because we see you
3:40
mostly on the the socials? Is that why?
3:42
Yeah, the the rest don't want to be on camera.
3:44
So, so we, we are going to try and introduce them because the
3:48
goal is to move forwards with what we're doing.
3:50
So like maybe some more vlog style videos and daily stuff and
3:55
bring people into our lives a bit more.
3:57
And from, from simple renovations to, you know, just
4:01
talking to the camera type of situation.
4:03
So we're they will definitely be forced to be on camera a lot
4:06
more in the future. People can realize that there's
4:09
not just Mum and I, but. Sometimes I think with brother
4:13
and sister. Or all it's like.
4:15
Yeah, it's really big, even though we make it make it very
4:17
obvious that it's like, yeah, it's a boy, but.
4:20
Yeah. That's interesting.
4:22
Well, you're both very natural in front of the camera and I
4:27
think something that like, you know, myself as a content
4:31
creator and the content creators that I like to follow are people
4:35
that sort of give us that peek behind the curtain and bring you
4:38
along for the ride, talk you through all the different parts
4:41
of the journey. So how long have, how long have
4:44
you guys been seriously focused on trying to, I guess, promote
4:49
what you're doing and tell me a little bit of back, back story
4:53
on the land? How long have you been there?
4:55
And what, what was the, what were you taking over from?
5:00
So was there anything around or are you were you starting fresh?
5:04
Well, we're starting fresh. This the land tea is all
5:08
basically abused land and it was it was wiped out, used for
5:13
cattle. It was stripped of any
5:14
nutrients. It has tunnel erosion, which is
5:18
really extreme because you can step somewhere and just fall.
5:21
Wow. Also, yeah, we, we basically
5:24
have designed, well, we, well, the journey sort of started with
5:28
mum and dad after I gave them a suggestion about we should plant
5:32
fruit trees all over the place. And you look, because we're
5:36
already on the rehabilitation side of stuff.
5:39
And then it sort of expanded on into them finding Jeff Lauden
5:44
and us looking into the food forest from from that point.
5:49
And it's been about six years now.
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And since it's been around that six year mark, it was around
5:55
five years we started the food forest.
5:57
Is 6 years old. Probably.
5:59
Two years prior to that we were doing research a a good year
6:03
before that we went to see some permaculture farms.
6:07
Even the year before that we just watched a lot of videos
6:11
yeah, yeah, wonderful. We've been on the property for
6:14
13 years, and when we bought it, we bought 4 nearly 400 acres.
6:19
But where we're sitting, we're on the top of like, mountains.
6:24
Yes. Yeah.
6:24
The swales come in very handy when you're trying to slow the
6:27
water down the. Yard just like RIP the mountain
6:32
out and all of the trees around here are regrowth so they're not
6:36
holding anything together and they just tend to fall over and
6:39
cause a lot of problems. And yeah, we're we're doing the
6:43
Swale system and the permaculture is a great way to
6:46
show how how to rehabilitate the land as well because we're we've
6:49
got ungrowable soil here. And I actually did a a TE DX
6:54
talk when I was in year 10 and on this because the main
6:59
principle we wanted to get out of this was actually trying to
7:04
work out the rehabilitation side of the soil, which we started
7:07
doing. And the fact that this soil we
7:10
grow in is used in so many foreign countries where they
7:14
can't grow food and the the only thing they're being taught is
7:18
monoculture, which is just it's not gonna help anyone in in
7:22
especially in their case. So the we, we basically look at
7:27
this like we can bring it to other countries as well
7:29
eventually and help the understanding of rehabilitating
7:33
soil. That's really cool.
7:35
So it strikes me that you have been interested in this topic
7:39
since a young age. You know, possibly the.
7:43
Result. He wanted, like he's always
7:45
been, interested in food. Yeah, used to be 110 kilos.
7:49
I love my food, so yeah, right. Actually, my fruits, yeah.
7:52
Yeah, cool. That's I did see that wonderful
7:55
video about your weight loss journey and focusing on fasting,
7:59
which is a whole nother topic. We could get into it someday
8:02
later. But so yeah, congratulations on
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that. And I think that, yeah, having
8:08
an interest from such a young age was, was permaculture and
8:12
something like you understood and figured out or came across
8:17
from a young age or is it something your family's known
8:20
about for ages or well. Plants and fruit trees I've
8:23
always had a knowledge on and farm farming and everything.
8:27
As soon as we moved here when I was around like 7 years old, I
8:30
think it was is, yeah. It was, you know, right into
8:35
everything. It was Bush walks.
8:36
It was this that I'm finally out of the town.
8:40
Well, our lifestyle before we moved here was very, very
8:43
different. Like we worked, my husband and I
8:45
worked full time in our own business and we had the kids up
8:48
at our place, up at the shed with us.
8:50
We, you know, we ate out of frozen meals, you know, lasagnas
8:56
and all that sort of stuff. So our lifestyle was very, very
8:59
different. Four days a week was take away
9:01
and we moved out to the Bush where we 20 minutes, 40 minutes
9:04
round trip from a town, a local town.
9:07
So everything was cut out. The takeaways were cut out.
9:10
We, you know, for a couple of years we, we still didn't eat
9:14
the best. And then, yeah, when
9:15
permaculture came along, it was more like, right, we're going to
9:19
grow our own food. We're going to be
9:21
self-sufficient. We're going to, you know, cut
9:23
out soaps like store bought stuff as much as possible.
9:28
I think COVID coming along in 2020 really pushed that, even
9:34
though we started the permaculture farm a year before
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that. I think that kind of catapulted
9:41
us and everyone else into, you know, let's not rely on the
9:45
shops and everything else for, for our food not.
9:47
Just that I feel like God's had a hand in it the whole way
9:51
because ever since I was young, I've had this passion and it's,
9:54
it's sort of like unexplained. It's sort of just is there, it
9:57
happens. I I have a lot of knowledge
9:59
about it already. And it's, it's sort of like it's
10:03
a path to follow as well. So it's, it's, I think we're
10:06
we're getting there with what we're doing.
10:09
Yeah. That's that's beautiful.
10:11
I, I get what you mean about that, like something you're
10:15
passionate about is almost like it calls you to it and you feel
10:19
like sort of drawn into that, into that world.
10:23
Just I wanted to double click on something you said, Andrea, like
10:26
when you were talking about sort of changing the lifestyle.
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What do you think could have been apart from obviously
10:36
seeing, you know, the madness that was going on at the start
10:38
of like COVID and and having to go hang on like our food systems
10:43
are really under strain here. What was the kind of catalyst
10:46
for you going? Okay, now let's move out to the
10:50
Bush. Let's have a bit of a, you know,
10:53
change of our lifestyle. Let's try and focus on where our
10:55
food comes from. Was there anything like, were
10:57
you just gradually learning these things or was there bit of
11:00
a catalyst or James maybe, were you sort of in mum's ear going,
11:04
you know, we should be doing this?
11:06
We're all sort of doing it, yeah.
11:07
It was, it was a gradual thing. It wasn't something that like,
11:10
because we'd, I dabbled in gardening prior, prior to
11:14
actually, you know, setting up the food forest didn't like
11:16
container pots and things like that.
11:18
And it just like I was a disappointment.
11:20
I got a couple of things out of it and that was about it.
11:22
But yeah, there wasn't anything that really, you know, pushed it
11:27
over the edge. It was just a gradual thing for
11:29
for us that we need to be doing this.
11:32
But I think, yeah, when you had that time with the lettuce and
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it was like $13 a head of lettuce and I was like, that's
11:39
just wrong. It is absolutely wrong.
11:41
You can buy a packet for $2.00 and then you can have all the
11:44
lettuce you want. Why is it, you know, the shops
11:47
are charging? It's just ridiculous.
11:49
And, and even vegetables we, we try and eat in season now.
11:54
So we, we, if we don't grow it or if we're growing it, we're
11:57
going to eat it. And if it means you're having
11:59
pumpkin ten ways, then you're having pumpkin ten ways or
12:03
zucchini. But we try and eat within the
12:06
season. If it's, I try not to buy things
12:09
in the shops knowing that, you know, in the summer, broccoli or
12:13
cauliflower is going to be $10 a head.
12:15
That's. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:17
No, I love that. That's something that I'm really
12:19
big on. Try and promote eating
12:20
seasonally, even trying to, I guess most of my focus is trying
12:24
to convince people to make the first step you did where you
12:27
were starting to grow in containers and starting to
12:30
understand the nutritional content of food and kind of go,
12:33
OK, I can actually stop relying on the shops.
12:36
I can grow my own. It is going to be more
12:39
nutritious and more nutrient dense because I can feed the
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soil, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
12:44
So that's kind of where my focus is and and I'm really pleased to
12:47
see that. But like, you know, someone like
12:49
myself and a few other people, obviously they get this stream
12:52
to you. I really want lots of land and I
12:54
really want to expand and all of this kind of thing.
12:57
Now you guys have a ton of land and that's like amazing because
13:04
it means that you have the options to be able to do so many
13:07
things. And that's kind of led you guys
13:09
to having all of these different products.
13:11
You've got like the, the self-sustaining food forest
13:14
where you can eat from every year.
13:17
Can you tell me like we'll come back to sort of the permaculture
13:20
beginnings in a second. Can you just tell me a little
13:23
bit about the types of produce and processes that are going on
13:28
on the farm? So when I'm, I'm thinking about
13:31
some of your products that you've got with the tallow stuff
13:33
and your first aid sprays things like this and obviously then
13:37
produce and all of that kind of thing as well.
13:40
Yeah. So the, the, the products that
13:43
we like, we're trying to source everything.
13:45
If we can't grow it here, which we try and do, especially with
13:48
the, the salves, all of that is grown here.
13:51
So we can just go and get some olive oil.
13:54
I buy, I actually buy it all in bulk.
13:57
It's shipping over from WA. So it's it's not one.
13:59
Day we'll do our own olive oil though.
14:01
Well, our olive trees are finely like producing fruits, so that's
14:05
what we want to cut down on is buying our oil.
14:08
Yeah, we grow most of the herbs here that we, we were, we were
14:12
putting into ourselves or our sprays and things like that.
14:16
We have, we'll just produce it. We've got a freeze dryer, so
14:18
we're freeze drying a lot of it when we've got some.
14:21
And then, you know, during the winter if I have to make more
14:23
stuff up, which is what's going to happen and we'll just pull it
14:25
out of the freeze dried stock and yeah, use it that way.
14:29
But yeah. Yeah.
14:31
Well, I mean, we have a whole bunch.
14:33
We have a whole bunch of vegetables and fruits growing.
14:35
We have, we have in the food forest, we've designed it so
14:38
there is herbs and everything else growing amongst the trees
14:42
and we sort of know where they're at.
14:44
And with it now there is enough organic material on the ground
14:48
to keep everything alive. And like we threw fancy kale in
14:53
the food forest, no extra dirt, just bare rooted and the thing
14:57
survived and it kept on growing and the Kangaroos nibbling at it
15:01
and everything like that. I.
15:02
Put it down there so I can save this so it can come out of my
15:05
garden, my veggie garden. It was time for it to come out,
15:08
but I wanted to collect the seeds from it.
15:10
And it actually hasn't even gone to seed during the whole summer.
15:14
It's just still growing down there.
15:15
It's it's a nice one, but yeah. We, we, we have that.
15:18
We have our country and all that it's but when we come to
15:21
processing it, we're a bit slack.
15:24
So everyone goes, you know, a lot of acreage is awesome, but
15:27
when you only have four people, it becomes a very big job.
15:31
And we're always so behind on doing this or that.
15:34
And it's a seven day job here because it's.
15:39
Yeah, if you lose a day or even if it rains, it throws you back
15:43
on the project. So yeah.
15:45
That was you. You've segwayed beautifully
15:48
because that was kind of the point I was trying to get across
15:50
is that how much you guys are doing and how small your team
15:53
is. So how do you manage like the,
15:58
the, I guess the stress or the ups and downs of, of the farm
16:03
life? How do you, how do you find that
16:06
works within a family dynamic? Sometimes it's easy if you've
16:09
got like, you know, someone who works for you and you kind of
16:12
just go, oh, you know, we'll just sort of go our separate
16:15
ways for today and work at what different ends of the farm.
16:17
If you don't agree on something, but you guys live together and
16:20
work together and a family. So how do you how do you find
16:23
that? Yeah, we start working it out
16:26
safe like I could sometimes a mediator in their situations as
16:32
a building. Meeting and then we all work out
16:34
exactly where everyone wants to be or needs to be.
16:38
Right at the moment we're working on a horse arena for
16:41
Drew's fiance. So, you know, that is what we
16:44
concentrate on. And then we have a list of a
16:47
million projects that we have to get done.
16:49
You know, there's pigs and chickens and all that's got to
16:52
be sorted. They're trying to fix that up.
16:55
It gets stressful when one person doesn't do this or that
16:58
and you know. But the good thing is we're all
17:00
not separate levels so we don't have to see each other all day.
17:04
But we do like if we're pulled together to do 1 project, for
17:09
instance, when we did our pig fence, it took us like a, a way
17:13
to chop up all the logs, put points on them and put them all
17:18
in the ground. Just me, dad and Drew.
17:20
And it's a good area and we can, we knock stuff out really fast
17:24
and really efficient and people just go holy crap.
17:27
You know, it's a, it's a really good cycle because we've learnt
17:30
how to work together and harden up and like, we don't eat lunch
17:34
so we just continue. But yeah, we.
17:36
Can all all work separately as well?
17:38
So I'm usually, you know, if in the summer and that I'm usually
17:42
on the excavator once a week at least for a whole week, it just
17:46
means I got to mow. So yeah, I'm on that.
17:50
The boys are on their other machines.
17:51
They're moving stuff around. Andrew might be on the bobcat.
17:54
He's got a flower on his as well.
17:55
So you know, he will make it easier in the flat areas where
17:59
he will just mow all that. So we we can all work
18:02
separately, but we all can come back together and work together
18:06
as a group very easily as well. Yeah, yeah.
18:08
Cool. I think you're doing a wonderful
18:10
job. I just wanted to kind of dig a
18:12
little bit into the insides of that because I imagine it would
18:15
be quite difficult for for a lot of families to kind of do that.
18:18
But I suppose when you need to get something done, people pull
18:21
together and they and they, you know, put your heads together
18:24
and, and you all love and care for each other anyway.
18:26
So it's, it's all a good thing it took.
18:29
Us a while. It took us a while to sort of
18:31
get there, though At the start we were stressed because it's
18:35
like any other family. They, they always say don't work
18:37
with family, family and don't work with friends.
18:39
And there's that. But once you do learn how to
18:42
work with your family or your friends, it's probably the best
18:45
thing because everyone knows each other so well, you know?
18:49
I agree. I think that might be slightly
18:53
irrelevant so much if you, you know, if you think about like
18:57
say old school communities and small towns and and even
19:02
European cities and things like this, there was a lot of times
19:05
where all members of the family are all coming together.
19:08
It takes a village to raise a child type mentality.
19:10
So I think it can really be done and you're showing that it that
19:14
it can be, which is wonderful. Let's jump back a little bit
19:18
into the permaculture again. So just that that initial start.
19:23
Now you mentioned Jeff Lawton's name.
19:25
Is that somebody that you you seeked out specifically or just
19:30
his practices and that kind of thing?
19:33
Well, when we look at him, we we looked at some of his stuff and
19:36
that's sort of what sparked mum and dad.
19:38
And then they reached out to Limestone Permaculture, which is
19:41
Brett Cooper. And he originally helped design
19:44
a lot of the start of the swales and we took on a lot of his
19:47
information, but not just that. We went to these permaculture
19:50
farms. And then what they did right,
19:52
what they did wrong, the differences and tried to do ours
19:57
and and and like basically implement things other people
20:02
wouldn't and implement and don't implement things that other
20:05
people would because Jeff, Jeff Laughton has.
20:09
These daisies, I think the Tokyo Daisy all through his food
20:12
forest, which just takes over everything and but at the same
20:16
time we have eucalyptus trees which are, you know, 3020 meters
20:20
high and the food forest which kill everything under them and
20:23
people you can use you can use them in syntropics, but they
20:27
have to be small and when they're we're in controlled when
20:30
they're 2030 meters high, it just kills everything around
20:33
them. It's it's impossible to try and
20:35
rehabilitate the land we have. We have slowly, but it's like
20:39
it's still like year one almost compared to year 6 under the
20:43
trees. And we also did like Andrew, my
20:47
husband and I, we also did a lot of research on like YouTube.
20:51
So yes, we come across Jeff Laughton and we decided, yes,
20:54
that's exactly what I want to do.
20:56
We're in a temperate area and we also wanted to push the
20:59
boundaries. So we watched a lot of Pete
21:01
Canaris with Green Dreams and he's, he's amazing.
21:05
And he, he's got a series where he's goes through Puerto Rico
21:07
and he does a whole bunch of food forests there as well.
21:12
And so we just literally made a list.
21:14
This is our wish list. These are all the trees that we
21:16
want. And yes, they're tropical.
21:17
Yes, they're subtropical. We're in the temperate area and
21:21
we're actually, you know, creating microclimates down
21:23
there where we can grow. We've.
21:25
Got Jack roots growing and. More on the tropical side and we
21:30
lost a lot. We lost a lot of the tropicals,
21:32
but we're we're going to try again.
21:33
It's a different environment down there, yeah.
21:36
They all went in when they're small and now everything's
21:39
taller than me. So it's finally you've got all
21:43
these trees that even have been dead for four years, like the
21:46
light, and they've just come back because the environment
21:50
around them has completely changed from day dot and you'd
21:53
think they're dead. And if we RIP them out, they'll
21:55
definitely be dead. But somehow they've come back
21:58
from a dead stick or even nothing on the ground, like
22:02
literally nothing. They've just shot back out of
22:04
the ground, which is the. So all the trees have clearly
22:07
kept it alive from its roots. And they're the macro ISA layer.
22:11
And yeah, it's, it's really interesting to.
22:15
But I think we can, yeah. I think it's about time we start
22:18
introducing stuff like Coco and cacao and all these different
22:24
highly tropical. Mangoes.
22:25
That mango stains that are a bit harder to grow because we've got
22:30
even a chacha is coming back now, which are pretty similar to
22:33
the mango stains. So when it comes to the tree,
22:37
and while I genuinely believe that yeah, everything, it's the
22:42
micro climates are everything and we've really changed this
22:44
area through it. That's that's really cool.
22:48
So many interesting things that come out of what, what you're
22:50
saying. The the first thing I noticed
22:54
obviously is a lot of the research that went into this,
22:57
you, you weren't going into it blind, although it is of course
23:01
a learning experience with every piece of land.
23:05
But also, you know, when you, when you become come on some
23:08
land and start living on the land, you've got to watch it
23:11
over the years and over the seasons to understand how it
23:13
reacts and how it changes. And then like you said, you're,
23:18
you're sort of you're trying things, but because you are
23:21
transforming the land, you are changing the microclimates in
23:25
different spots and different areas.
23:26
So things can thrive or won't thrive, depending on, you know,
23:31
what your first plans were and things like that.
23:33
So you mentioned it might have been a bit of a challenge or a
23:37
surprise, I guess in that regard.
23:40
What are what are some of the ones that have been really
23:43
difficult? What's some of the stuff that
23:45
you're struggling with and like really want to try and get
23:48
right? Growing or it?
23:51
Could be anything to do with yeah the the sort of I think I'm
23:55
thinking more land transformation like the
23:57
permaculture and growing well. We have one of those things is
24:01
we want to get back into expanding the food forests and
24:03
stuff like that. But we also really need to
24:08
rearrange what we're doing here because we, we're so far like
24:12
this area is booming in tourism. It's really great.
24:15
But we're so far away that we need to introduce tiny homes
24:19
here. We need to rearrange how we're
24:22
working and sort of shift our flow so we can bring more people
24:26
here and educate more people, but do it in a way people are
24:29
also comfortable. So we're going to, yeah, we've,
24:32
we've still got a plenty of little projects all around the
24:35
place that we need to finish off.
24:36
And sometimes it feels like you're never going to get there.
24:39
So but that's why we're changing it.
24:42
We're sort of changing some points around at the moment, but
24:45
yeah. You're right, it my list seems
24:49
to constantly grow. When I try cross something else
24:52
off, there's probably three or four more things that go on the
24:55
list. So yeah.
24:56
Is anything ever crossed off though?
24:58
No. True, True.
24:59
You're on a farm and it's always improving.
25:01
Like we built a barn for the the pigs so the girls can go in
25:05
there and have the babies. And it was solid timber.
25:08
It was absolutely beautiful. But because it was solid timber,
25:11
the roof, the all the rain and the moisture went into and the
25:15
roof collapsed. And, you know, there's always,
25:17
you've got to, we've got to take that off now.
25:19
And, you know, at one point that was complete and finished and it
25:22
was beautiful. Now you've got to go back.
25:24
Same with the chickens. You've got to, you know, you've
25:26
got to improve. Nothing's ever finished.
25:28
I don't think that on a farm you're going to ever find that.
25:30
Oh, OK, I've reached that project and it's done.
25:32
You're always going to do repairs.
25:34
Yes to it. Yeah, that's a very good point
25:36
to make. And either you're, yeah,
25:37
repairing or upgrading or something is always going to
25:40
come up. That means you have to and.
25:43
The machine, like even the machines, like you're always so
25:46
busy. So even with the machines,
25:48
you've got to keep the main, the maintenance up.
25:50
So you got to know mechanics and everything like that in case
25:54
something stuffs up with them. Because if it stuffs stuffs up,
25:57
then your day's gone. So you know, you're always
26:00
trying to chase your tail when it's only four of you.
26:03
You've got, you're like, I'm a Jack of all trades, so I can do
26:07
really anything. But trying to be ripped around
26:11
parts of the property to do and everything is, is always very
26:14
hard. You don't have specialized
26:16
people for doing this and that, which would make the job faster
26:20
and easier, but it's just not the case with us.
26:24
It's more, it's obviously costs more to be outsourcing
26:27
everything as well. So yeah, so doing it all
26:31
yourself makes, well, it's, it feels good if you can do it
26:34
yourself, saves money and, and all of that sort of thing.
26:37
But you're right, if you're being pulled from different ends
26:39
of probably an enormous property, that might take you a
26:42
bit of time to get around and get things.
26:44
Like I even remember working on a few acres and I would get to
26:50
where I was working and I'd forgotten some of the tools that
26:53
were back in the shed. And then there goes another
26:55
amount of time. You gotta go.
26:57
Yeah. So and that I'm sure that's
27:01
probably amplified with you guys.
27:04
Yeah, you go down to to do some plantings and it's like you, you
27:07
grab what what you think you need and then when you get down
27:09
there, it's like, no, I forgot this and I forgot that.
27:12
And then, you know, you send somebody to go and pick like go
27:15
and find the pic for me. And it's like, where is it?
27:18
I don't know. It's up at the shed somewhere.
27:20
It's just it's not easy. It's never easy.
27:23
It's not a nice flow. It's like, yes, everything's in
27:26
the shed. Everything's or you.
27:28
Expect to get a nice dry week and then it ends up raining and
27:32
you know, it's like, well, there goes half the plans now we've
27:35
got to rearrange what we're doing for this week and it just
27:39
becomes an absolute flop of a week sometimes when it's like
27:42
that happens. Did you guys experience much
27:45
from the the rain and the cyclone that came through
27:48
recently We. Got hammered, we got 500 mil.
27:51
In that, no, in that just from that rain we got 100 mil, which
27:54
isn't too bad, but the previous to that I think the.
27:58
Week before we had our own cyclone, almost.
28:00
Yeah, we had like 100 mil, so everything was soaked.
28:03
The the swales were chockabox no.
28:05
We had almost 504 hundred and something I thought it was, but
28:08
yeah, we we've flooded here a lot of I've never seen before
28:11
not. Flooded the the slales you you
28:14
might have needed a boat to go through them that was.
28:16
Goodness, that would have been really interesting to see how
28:19
your land coped under that kind of amount of rain and the work
28:22
that you've done as well to manage the water and that kind
28:25
of thing. Did you did you see anything
28:29
that you could have? You know that you were like,
28:31
wow, OK, I didn't realize that this much water meant that we
28:35
kind of got that bit wrong. Or I mean, I'm not.
28:38
Going to grow nothing with the food forest, just the road at
28:40
the moment. So I rebuilt the bottom half of
28:42
our Rd. going up the food forest maybe a year ago and did a
28:48
pretty good job with it, bringing all the loads in of
28:51
material to do it and building it up.
28:53
And then the rain was like, because up the top we have a
28:58
shed and then there's a tank and the tanks overflow faces onto
29:02
the road when it's full and it drips directly down.
29:06
So instead of rolling off the road, it's sort of cradle its
29:09
own channel and rolled all the way down, almost in the middle
29:13
of the road, all the way down this big hill and literally cut
29:17
out a massive yeah line of erosion.
29:21
And it's one of those things we've got to get back to.
29:23
But we filled in the the erosion, but as soon as we get
29:26
more rain, it's just going to happen again and again.
29:29
So we need to move the overflow and we need to rebatter the
29:32
roads. But it's another step to get to
29:34
because we're when we get a dry day, we're down building this
29:38
horse arena at the moment, which is the massive project by
29:43
itself. And it's, it's, it's just is
29:47
almost impossible to, well, it doesn't make sense in anyone's
29:51
head to move a dozer that way. It's £27.00 from here to drive
29:54
at 5 or 10 minutes up the road to do a project there and then
29:57
drive it back down because it's too expensive in fuel and
30:00
everything else. You want the machines at a
30:02
project and you want them to stay there type of thing.
30:05
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's so many things that, you
30:09
know, just your everyday gardener just wouldn't
30:11
understand or be able to think about.
30:14
So that's why I'm really enjoying touching on all of
30:17
these things and being able to juggle it.
30:19
Can you, can you maybe touch on, I know this is another probably
30:25
a string to your bow, but like the, the way that you're now
30:29
connecting with the community on your socials and things like
30:33
this. You're also, correct me if I'm
30:35
wrong, you, you run workshops and things where you bring
30:38
people in to, to learn and, and as you say, to see the land and
30:42
things like that. Tell me a bit about that, how it
30:44
started and where it's sort of heading.
30:47
We do food forest tours, so that was the main thing when it comes
30:51
to educating. We did a build a Swale workshop
30:55
so people could learn how to build a Swale and then they got
30:59
lunch afterwards and we walked through the food forest so
31:01
people could understand the beforehand and how to build it
31:05
and what sort of comes out as, and it's with mum's down a whole
31:10
bunch of workshops, but we have tons that we're planning to do.
31:13
There's more. We only just opened up to the
31:15
public in September of last year, right?
31:17
So it's just a matter of building up.
31:19
We want to be able to bring schools in and and educate that
31:23
way. But yeah, the workshops, we'll,
31:25
we've got mushroom workshops and banana workshops planned, but
31:29
then we also want to do things like a herbal tea workshop.
31:33
So I've got books that I'm desperately trying to get out at
31:38
the moment, which is a herbal tea one, and it's for all
31:41
different seasons. And we want to do a workshop
31:43
that's going to complement that as well.
31:45
And then we've got a gourd. We did.
31:47
We grew our own gourds and we did gourds, bird houses and
31:50
stuff. That was so much fun.
31:51
We want to do stuff, maybe even Bush cooking, like work courses
31:55
or even in the food forest or I want to do adapted drink courses
32:00
because I, I haven't touched the like pharmaceuticals, including
32:03
Panadol, Nurofen in like 8 years I think, or seven years.
32:07
It's, I mean, ages, yeah. Good man, Yeah.
32:10
And I've never been healthy. I literally got sick every
32:13
single time. When they give me the flu
32:15
tablets, I'd say sick for months and I haven't get gotten sick in
32:20
years. And if I I think I got sick like
32:22
a handful of times and it's for about two days, I have my herbs
32:26
and it knocks it out of me. That's amazing.
32:29
Yeah, so I really want to teach people how to build that side of
32:33
the herbal herbal world because it is, it is awesome.
32:37
And some things you just can't sell, but you can grow.
32:40
So when it comes to herbs, you know, I'm not saying it's
32:44
illegal. It's just illegal to sell as a
32:47
medical type of situation, but people can definitely learn how
32:52
to do it themselves and make their own adaptogens and stuff
32:55
like that because they're, they're the world of adaptogens
32:58
and the herbal world is quite awesome.
33:01
That's amazing. Mushrooms are going to come in
33:03
as well. You know, we want to grow the
33:04
mushroom with the mushroom workshop.
33:06
Yes, there's going to be edible mushrooms, but there's
33:08
definitely going to be the medicinal mushrooms as well
33:11
that, you know, we're super keen on.
33:13
So we don't have to go buying it.
33:14
We want to grow it ourselves. That's amazing.
33:16
I I'm I back that 100%. I think that the, you know, the,
33:22
the healthcare system will certainly get a bit of a wake up
33:26
call with all of the knowledge that's ancient knowledge to be
33:30
honest, of all of these amazing substances, herbs and and
33:34
spices, etcetera that you can grow quite easily, can be quite
33:39
prolific and turn into yourselves, your balms, teas and
33:42
tinctures and all sorts of that. It's something that I am trying
33:46
to, to do more of myself as well, just to try and bring a
33:50
bit more of an education into what the plants can be used for
33:55
outside of eating them. So that's a that's an amazing
34:01
one. I'm really glad that you touched
34:02
on that. We're very.
34:04
We're very, both of us are very passionate about the, the herbal
34:08
side of things. So yeah, we make our own
34:09
capsules and we buy our own even vitamin C, we'll buy it in a big
34:13
bag and then just we'll. We'll learn to extract it one
34:17
day. We're once we get to that point,
34:19
that's. So hard.
34:21
I know. So sometimes you think we've got
34:23
so many different projects, it's easier just to get something
34:26
than it is to go through a five step process and extract it.
34:30
But especially if you're only going to get a small amount from
34:33
it. Yeah, true.
34:35
And like for example, I have a lot or use a lot and eat a lot
34:40
of beef tallow and you guys use it you.
34:43
As well. Yeah, yeah, it's an absolutely
34:46
amazing thing. I'm not don't say this too too
34:49
much publicly, to be honest, but I'm not a huge vegetable eater,
34:53
even though I grow and eat a lot of vegetables.
34:56
I primarily eat meat and and nutrient dense food and things
35:01
like this and use vegetables and herbs and things for their sort
35:05
of medicinal and occasional usages.
35:09
Tell me about, just out of my selfish interest about the beef
35:13
tallow, are you guys getting that in?
35:14
Obviously you don't have any cattle or anything on the
35:16
property. Cattle.
35:17
But we have our friend out the road who is our home butcher.
35:22
He goes to people's farms and a lot of people don't want their
35:26
tallow or their fats. Yeah, all his cows, they're all
35:28
grass fed. They're, they're his cows.
35:30
If he's, if he's butchering cows or he will go to somebody else's
35:34
farm. So he basically knows that we
35:36
will take any fats that he's got and every bit that the the
35:41
owners of the cows don't want. So, yeah.
35:42
And then we've also got Lad as well.
35:44
So that's from our own pigs that we've processed.
35:47
Beautiful Lad too. So yeah.
35:50
That's amazing. We.
35:51
Do. We we we source or that?
35:54
I think it's so expensive. Divide in and try and do the
35:57
whips and all that. Yeah, man, it's so expensive.
36:01
You know, as somebody on a small scale, there's no way I can get
36:04
my own tallow like that. I do have a good relationship
36:08
with my butcher, but it's amazing how much of it they
36:11
throw out and just get a discard and you know, they, it's such a
36:16
valuable thing. You guys can then turn it into a
36:19
valuable product that does wonders for people and actually
36:22
is kind of becoming more and more on demand.
36:26
I'm sure you're you're finding as well.
36:28
Go the tally web, Yeah. And even the organs or the
36:31
organs are highly like they're the first things that they use
36:36
we throw out in this day and age.
36:38
But back a long time ago, that was the first thing that
36:41
everyone wanted, the hearts and the livers and everything else
36:44
that were prime real estate of an animal.
36:48
So But yeah, that's absolutely right.
36:49
And now they're putting them into capsules and yeah, you can
36:53
buy them. And people are, you know,
36:54
consuming them. Yeah, I do.
36:56
I do regularly. I I have capsules regularly.
37:00
I, I do sometimes try and cook up different blends and things
37:05
like this, but I'm still developing my palette on that
37:09
one. Just going back to, to the
37:13
workshops, obviously you've just started.
37:16
Let's talk about the opening up the farm.
37:19
What's the reception being like for people coming in?
37:22
What are they, what are they thinking?
37:24
So. The people that have come very
37:27
excited and they can see like this massive big picture, but I
37:31
think the local community have not quite grasped the the idea.
37:39
They think permaculture, it's not for me.
37:41
I'm not into gardening or I'm not into, you know, growing this
37:44
massive food forest sort of thing.
37:46
So it hasn't been a huge amount of people coming to actually.
37:50
Have a look. They look at it like it's it's
37:51
monoculture. They don't think of it like it's
37:53
permaculture where it grows itself and looks after itself.
37:56
And you can do the most basic thing to rehabilitate your land
38:00
and not not just feed your family, but feed everyone else
38:03
around you and feed the soil and everything.
38:05
But people are sort of, it's interesting.
38:08
I think this area has the most potential and I think it's going
38:11
to extremely go off in the next couple of years.
38:15
I think it's, it's going to become something completely
38:18
different. I, I genuinely believe if you
38:21
you do not the Hunter Valley Gardens, the Hunter Valley.
38:27
So I believe this area is sort of what it's aiming at,
38:31
especially with the tourist side of things, the.
38:35
Hannah Valley is more wine based but.
38:37
This is going to be more food and fruit and sort of that type
38:43
of base with activities and all these little workshops and stuff
38:49
all around the area. And we want to try and promote
38:51
more and more people to do it. And in the last couple of years
38:54
it's it's starting to, you're starting to see everywhere
38:57
people are actually jumping on and doing this with their
39:00
educating the public, which is crucial for an area to grow.
39:05
I love that point. And you're right, you know, I've
39:08
seen it with the Northern Rivers, like they're they're a
39:11
massive area that's starting to shift.
39:13
Well, they have shifted, but it's primarily people doing
39:17
similar things to yourself. And I imagine in certain areas
39:21
where monocrop agriculture and traditional agriculture has been
39:25
the thing for a long time, it's hard to change some of those
39:29
minds. Like long term it it takes, you
39:33
know, the next generation. Like, you know, I'd consider
39:36
myself somewhat young at 32, trying to bring the next inspire
39:41
the next youth of people to try and start talking about this
39:45
more. Use use the Internet and social
39:47
media and get people to understand it can be done and it
39:51
is. And.
39:52
It's not. And it's not as scary as people
39:54
think it is. You know, it's, it's quite
39:57
straightforward, especially when it comes to fruit trees.
40:00
And yeah, you don't need to be feeding.
40:03
The more these people go, oh, what about fertilizers?
40:05
What about the soil? What about this and that?
40:07
I'm like it's it's. Step.
40:09
It's just like take a step at a time and take a step back at the
40:13
same time, because you need to look at the bigger picture and
40:16
realize it's just a tree. They grow everywhere.
40:18
They're not nothing special. You know that they can look
40:21
after themselves quite well. You're right and something I
40:25
talk about is mimicking the the role of nature and the cycles
40:29
nature, the forest floor, for example, how you know as as it
40:33
goes in the food forest, you have all of the organic material
40:36
that falls, creates the mulch layer, therefore feeds the soil
40:39
to then feed the trees and and you've got different layers of
40:42
canopy and things like this. So you're absolutely right on
40:46
that one. Can you talk to me a little bit
40:48
about your food forest? What I want to go through the
40:54
basic stages of you building it. So say for example, what went in
40:59
first, what do you use as your main crops, your support trees
41:04
and you know, things like this, what's, what can you tell me?
41:07
So we started with 3 swales and then it sort of went to seven
41:12
after a couple of weeks because it was only supposed to be 3.
41:15
And then from 7 it sort of went to 14.
41:18
It went down to 1515 and now it's at 19 swales.
41:24
So yeah, it's almost 3 kilometres, over 3 kilometres of
41:30
food forest whale that you walk through.
41:32
And then we've got 800 metres, 800 and something, metres of
41:36
orchard Swale, which is off contour swales.
41:39
Goodness me, down the bottom of the food forest.
41:42
So so. We moved the orchard trees like
41:44
Peaches, plums and nectrons. Apples, pears, oranges are on
41:48
their separate Swale because they're at the bottom of the pig
41:52
pen and the chicken pen, the blueberries, because they'll
41:54
have that run off coming into them, which is perfect for them.
41:57
And then, yeah, and because we will bag up predominantly those
42:02
trees that we want, like the figs and jujubes, they're all in
42:05
the orchard. There's none of those, actually.
42:07
Still uses or or permaculture principles but an ABC planting
42:13
principles. So no trees planted next to each
42:16
other. But next time when we continue
42:18
the food forest, I'm definitely looking at putting a completely
42:22
different variety of trees in, in, in the next slot compared to
42:26
what we have now. I want to do, I want to
42:28
introduce some of the fruit trees like like the apples and
42:31
stuff like that that we have in the orchard in today's into a
42:35
food forest. It is its own food forest, but
42:40
at the same time the the fruit orchard.
42:42
But it's, I don't know. It's, it's interesting because I
42:46
really wouldn't mind doing some really weird type of food for
42:51
us. Try try a couple of different
42:52
designs, you know, Yeah. And then, so basically the the
42:55
swales were built, yeah, they took quite a few weeks and then
42:59
we just came in and and did like a swarm of building.
43:02
And our basic thing was we drilled holes because our soil
43:05
was really bad. So we drilled holes and we
43:08
bought in orchard mix and and we filled those holes up.
43:11
So it's 300 and we just came in and put out canopies and sub
43:16
canopies. They were all drilled we.
43:17
We did that because you to lower the shock from this soil because
43:22
of how dreadful it was and we're already in a drought.
43:24
So when you know, that definitely helped us, but it
43:30
wasn't like it was like, yeah, only putting it.
43:33
It's basically a rim of soil around these plants you're
43:36
putting in, and then it's trying to introduce into the normal
43:40
ground. But now we've literally just
43:41
gone along and just started planting trees into the normal
43:44
ground because there's no need for this.
43:47
Well, it's not artificial. It's all natural.
43:48
We made trolls all beyond organic soil, but yeah, now
43:52
nothing even needs feeding so. And then and then once we got
43:56
the the canopies and sub canopies in, we threw out a
43:58
bunch of ground cover because there was no ground cover
44:01
whatsoever. So it was very, very bare.
44:03
We put out Tagasasti veg is a really good nitrogen fixer veg
44:08
fava beans. Red crack from.
44:11
Flava yeah. And that sort of stuff just to
44:13
try and get some ground cover. But then at the beginning, we
44:16
also put in a lot of pumpkins in every single soil that the hole
44:20
that we had, we had pumpkins and melons put in because everything
44:24
was there. We could see and look after it
44:26
and we wanted to cover the ground at the same time.
44:29
So we covered it with pumpkins we had.
44:31
We were in a drought. We were hand watering every week
44:35
by hand, like 3 kilometres, pulling up and down the side of
44:39
them. We'll do water.
44:41
It was a workout in its own. There was four of us, and then
44:44
we're doing this every week while the drought was on and we
44:48
were establishing those trees. So at the time we had pumpkins
44:52
and melons everywhere. We had so many pumpkins, we
44:55
couldn't give them away. Yeah.
44:57
We're dropping them off at the church.
44:58
It's dropping them off everywhere.
44:59
It's like because we're we're, we're in no position to sell
45:02
stuff and we never planned to sell stuff until we hit a
45:05
certain year and try and basically use the stuff to
45:10
manufacture stuff and then we'll sell it.
45:11
But it's. And during that and during that
45:15
time, we fed all the Kangaroos in the whole area.
45:18
They were like fattest Kangaroos.
45:21
It was drought. There was no grass anywhere but
45:23
the the Kangaroos. They loved the the pumpkins
45:25
every. Morning you go down there and
45:27
they'll eat the veg or the pumpkins and everything like
45:30
that because. Oh yeah, I mean, even the actual
45:32
pumpkins, they were like literally eating the out of the
45:36
mum and everything around here was dead.
45:40
This was the only place that was alive.
45:42
Like, yeah, it was dead That all the eucalyptus trees were
45:46
starting to turn brown everywhere.
45:48
It was starting to freak us out because it was probably one of
45:52
the worst droughts we've seen, which, yeah, I mean, that's why
45:55
we're still thankful for the rain.
45:57
But just sometime that's. Right.
45:59
Too much. That's crazy that you were doing
46:02
that all by hand. Do you have rainwater tanks?
46:05
Do you have a dam? Do you have?
46:07
Yeah. Yeah, we have lots of rainwater.
46:09
Tanks. And then we have dams with solar
46:12
pumps on them, one at the bottom of the food forest and one up
46:15
the hill maybe. Yeah, for the veggie garden.
46:19
And then we have another one that sits just above the food
46:22
forest. So if we need to discharge from
46:25
it, we'll discharge into the food forest that whole entire
46:28
dam. But yeah.
46:29
Cool, That's a really cool thing, all the.
46:31
Smiles, all 1519 smiles now all of them end up right down the
46:35
bottom of the hill and they all end up in a dam which we never
46:38
planned. We never had a dam there.
46:39
It was just like, OK, let's you know this is where the swell
46:43
ends. I don't even know how the dam.
46:45
Came to be, but but yeah, we have this one small pump, so we
46:48
can always pump from the large dam dam up to the small dam and
46:52
then that small dam will actually start its swell 1
46:56
releasing water and it'll work its way all the way down the
46:59
food forest into back into the big dam.
47:01
That's so clever because it kind of it's like cycling, even
47:04
cycling the nutrients. I think, I mean, a lot of the
47:06
water is going to get absorbed, but at that same point, if you
47:09
can cycle it at a good rate, then you're going to absorb the
47:12
water but not waste any water that's right off.
47:16
That's so clever, yeah. That's really awesome.
47:20
I loved how you were touching on a few of the different species
47:22
and things that you used because I think that's really like if
47:27
people are looking to have a quick ground cover or something,
47:31
or if they're looking for, you know, like for example, I, I've
47:35
made a cover crop seed blend, which I use in between, either
47:40
in between crops or alongside crops depending on what it is
47:44
when we're growing things. Sorry.
47:47
Yeah, sorry. Sorry.
47:49
Now you're finished. I'm sorry.
47:50
Oh. No, that's all good.
47:50
I was just saying that I love Clover and veg and things like
47:54
this and the the the beans and things for this reason, because
47:58
they do add a lot and have that sort of symbiotic relationship.
48:02
Are you using things like comfrey and pigeon pee and some
48:07
of the more like the typical ones that you might use, What
48:10
sort of other things are you using to to help improve that
48:13
soil in the food forest? Yeah, Bannergrass.
48:17
We do have some pigeon pea Tagasasti's great any, anything
48:21
chop and drop really, even the the ice cream beans and otrogen
48:25
and they are great chop and drop.
48:28
But especially the bannergrass. If, if everyone out there, if
48:32
you want banner grass, you got to get it like it's, it's great
48:35
to cover your plants. And we, we use it to just, we
48:39
chop it, go up to plants, put it down around the base of it and
48:42
the stuff breaks down and creates some lovely soil and
48:46
also protects them and. It's high in protein, so it's
48:48
great for the animals as well. Yeah, the chickens like the
48:50
green, but the pigs love the the really storky.
48:53
Like it's really like, what do you call it?
48:56
Bamboo or? And people with cows and sheep
48:59
or or giving goats, everyone they that I've given banner
49:04
grass to or have banner grass already that are that have these
49:07
animals, they say that's all they feed them.
49:09
They absolutely, the animals go berserk over it.
49:12
They love it. Wow, that's really good.
49:14
I've seen it used quite effectively before.
49:18
Yeah. And it creates microclimates as.
49:20
Well, and you can apparently it's edible.
49:23
The small or lower stems before they shoot out, you can actually
49:27
eat them, cook them up like a stir fry.
49:29
We haven't, we haven't tried it yet, but yeah, we're.
49:32
Not that desperate for food, yeah?
49:33
There's that with yeah. I mean, chop and drop is the
49:38
name of we feed our food forest and look after it because it's
49:42
it sort of, I mean, I love it chop and drops itself because
49:46
all the trees are dropping leaves and everything like that,
49:48
which is. Getting and the bananas as well
49:50
and. The bananas, we also run the
49:54
brush cutter through there. So all the weeds and stuff that
49:56
are growing get chopped back and they end up being chop and drop.
50:00
And a lot of people always very worried about the weeds in the
50:03
food forest overtaking or rat's tail or kangaroo grass or this
50:07
and that. But they all sort of have their
50:09
purpose to, to rehabilitate the soil.
50:12
And when the soil changes into a different soil, these ones start
50:16
packing their bags and they even because it's basically they're
50:20
not needed there anymore. They're not, it's ungrowable
50:23
soil for them. And you'll see that that's why
50:25
they it grows around here because the soil is crap
50:28
everywhere except the food forest.
50:29
It's sort of changed where you see some weeds now, but actually
50:33
in this whales there's barely any because they can't grow
50:36
there. It's just not suitable for them.
50:38
So we use those as we use those as chop and drop at the start as
50:41
well. What?
50:42
You think are what it is as well.
50:44
Yeah, I mean, people call most useful plants like kangaroo
50:47
grass, I call it a wheat. But in reality you can make
50:50
bread from the seeds and everything from it.
50:51
So they've they've got their own.
50:54
Every plant has its own uses of weed or not, but it just
50:58
depends. Yeah, that's such a a great
51:01
point. I'm so pleased you highlighted
51:03
that the like I talk about how nature doesn't love bare soil
51:09
and how having like if you have any kind of bare stretch of
51:13
soil, usually it will throw down some weeds.
51:15
They're usually the first ones that come in, create a bit of
51:18
diversity in the in the soil and then start to come and then you
51:21
get your grasses, then your shrubs and it builds to a forest
51:25
eventually and changes the climate.
51:27
So, so you're right, once it gets to that stage of being a
51:31
self perpetuating system, those initial diverse weeds and things
51:36
that did serve and play their role initially aren't needed
51:40
anymore. And, and you're right, they,
51:42
they kind of the, the healthier you get your soil, the less
51:45
likely you are to have infestations of, of weeds and
51:49
things like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:51
That's really, really cool. Now I'm conscious of time.
51:55
So we'll we'll sort of, you know, move towards the end of
51:59
this conversation. Can you talk to me a little bit
52:05
about the future of your, your plans, I guess both for the farm
52:14
and then personally maybe for you guys pushing yourselves out
52:18
there. I know you touched on it a
52:19
little bit earlier about more workshops, trying to sort of
52:22
educate in a little bit more, but how do you see it evolving
52:25
in the next 10 years or so? OK, so.
52:30
How long have we got? I'm like, I'm very excited about
52:36
the next 10 years. I, I genuinely believe that a,
52:39
the YouTube and all that stuff will get a good following where
52:42
people can actually follow along.
52:44
And not just that, they can come here and see us and see what
52:47
we're doing in action, hopefully implement what they're supposed
52:51
to do. What what what this but
52:53
everyone's supposed to do is live naturally and with the
52:55
earth and replicate that at home, but also have plans to
52:59
expand the food for us. I'd love to eventually take over
53:02
Gov and make the whole bigger food for us, but that's that's
53:05
100 years down the track. But yeah, also, you know, trying
53:11
to get the community more involved with it, the community
53:14
communities, everything around here.
53:16
And if we can get everyone involved, everyone sort of
53:19
working together and creating something out of it.
53:22
And like we want to eventually have all the tourism here.
53:25
We want to look at buggy rides and all these different crazy
53:30
things on the property, horse trails like like more like a fun
53:33
park where people can stay and experience the food forest
53:37
experience what we make here and sort of take, take the
53:42
information back home, not just as a fun park, but there's an
53:45
education park and it's, you know, you can always go to a zoo
53:49
and this and that, but you can't get yourself a monkey.
53:51
You can come here and you can get yourself a tree that's for
53:55
red bananas. So yeah.
54:00
And. That's wicked.
54:02
I love that kind of ambition and I think that passion, that drive
54:06
is what will really like, especially when you do it on the
54:09
YouTube and you show people the journey.
54:11
I think that's what'll really capture it for everybody because
54:15
like instantly, just the way you spoke on your social media and
54:19
your enthusiasm for what's going on and just like sharing these
54:24
tips and tricks, like that's something I love and gravitate
54:28
towards. I'm like, yes, you know, this,
54:30
this team, I suppose of you guys, not only you and you 2 and
54:34
the ones behind the scenes are really trying to do something
54:38
that's going to make a difference for a lot of people.
54:42
It does, I guess, come from like the, the selfish passion of
54:46
going. We love this, but it's also
54:49
understanding that this is helping the the globe in a such
54:53
a massive way of bringing us back to our roots of looking
54:57
after the land and trying to to educate others on that.
55:03
The goal is to push it back into people you know, and The thing
55:06
is, who needs money when they've got food, everything else and
55:10
everything to survive off? That's what I look at here is if
55:13
I can invest, invest, invest, invest into not I just ask for
55:18
everyone's future around here. I think the you'll see a whole
55:21
new world of emerge from it. Yeah, that's a beautiful
55:25
sentiment. Let's let's kind of go and tell
55:29
people where they can find you and anything that's coming up
55:34
for you. Is there any workshops or tours
55:37
or anything that you want to promote?
55:40
Or is it like you want to send people to the to the YouTube and
55:43
to your to your socials? Where would people be best to
55:46
come and find what you're up to and follow along?
55:49
Definitely you. We're we're on YouTube,
55:52
Instagram, Facebook, all the socials.
55:54
Under bathtub. Yeah.
55:55
Avast harvest, Permaculture. Vast harvest, Yeah.
56:01
Where did that come from? Where'd that name come from?
56:04
I don't know, sort of just appeared.
56:07
I've actually got a tattooed on me as well.
56:09
Yes. I'm very stuck to the name, but
56:12
I. Like it?
56:13
I really like it you. Know it's it was it was
56:15
abundance. What's another word for
56:17
abundance? There's like, there's a, it's
56:19
going to be a, a vast amount of food.
56:21
Like that's what we basically want, want to look at.
56:25
That's right. Yeah, I feel like it's a I'm
56:28
actually really happy we chose that name.
56:30
Somehow we just landed on it and it just happened and, you know,
56:33
it sort of stuck there. Like you said, it's just like
56:36
it's meant to be right And it just comes to you.
56:38
I, I think it explains, it says, you know, you guys are exactly
56:42
what it says on the tin type thing, like it's, it's vast
56:46
harvest and like you're going and you've got a vast food
56:48
forest. You're harvesting a large amount
56:50
of food and it's all permaculture related.
56:53
I think it beautifully sums up exactly what you're doing.
56:56
So yeah, I. And the we've got, what have we
57:00
got? The, the farm tours, it's we've
57:02
changed our farm tours up a little bit.
57:04
You can either get a private farm tour or we're going to do
57:07
more concentrated. Group tours we've worked out.
57:12
Food with it as well. So next month we want our June
57:15
sorry, we want to do like a bonfire night.
57:18
So, you know, we want to do a big like a fun tour in the
57:22
afternoon and then a massive big bonfire and a big pot of goulash
57:26
and. People need to like, subscribe
57:28
to the newsletter on the website because then they get to see
57:31
what's coming up because we're playing for like a big Viking
57:34
feast. Eventually that goes right down
57:36
our pad in the middle of a food forest or even we're looking in
57:39
the lines of a murder mystery in the food forest.
57:42
And also we've got a mate that has a big like a big cinema blow
57:46
up cinema screen. So you know, we're looking at
57:49
movies in the food forest. So it's going to be all these
57:52
type of events happening here. We hope to bring markets here as
57:56
well and and sales and people can come and do their like food
58:00
shops and stuff that's. Amazing.
58:03
All the food forest, yeah. And there we have it everybody.
58:23
Thank you again for listening. Please.
58:26
As I said, go and check out their links.
58:29
In the description below, you can find their newsletter which
58:32
has absolutely everything that's coming up for them at Vast
58:35
Harvest Permaculture Farm. You'll be able to see when the
58:38
workshops are coming up and of course the social media where
58:42
you'll be able to follow along on places like YouTube or
58:45
Instagram and discover exactly what's going on and how their
58:50
journey is progressing. I'm really excited to touch base
58:54
with them again in coming months and years to see how this vision
58:59
is progressing and how they're bringing more of this.
59:02
Awesome tourism to the area to be able to demonstrate and
59:07
educate exactly how they're doing things on the farm and how
59:11
other people can go out there and do the same thing too.
59:15
So I very much enjoyed my conversation with both Andrea
59:18
and James. I hope you got a lot of value
59:21
out of that today. So if you did, please don't
59:25
forget to leave a review on this podcast.
59:28
Go right now, stop the episode. Go and rate the show any kind of
59:33
amount of stars. An honest review, even if you
59:36
can type in a few things to do in the comments section about
59:40
the show and why you like it, it really helps other people come
59:44
and find the show. And we can all benefit from
59:47
learning from all of these wonderful guests each week.
59:50
So that would mean a lot to me. Thank you so much.
59:54
Lastly, the intermediate organic growers guide, remember this is
59:58
a level up. This guide goes into much more
1:00:01
detail. It's nearly 20 pages long and it
1:00:04
really expands on that free beginner's guide that is also
1:00:08
available. So if you're just getting into
1:00:10
it, grab the free one. But if you want to level up,
1:00:13
then the intermediate 1 is out. Now on the website you will find
1:00:17
the link for that below as well. Otherwise, thank you, have a
1:00:21
great week, look after yourself, stay happy, stay positive and I
1:00:25
will see you again very soon on the next episode.