Wed 22 May 2013 | 
Christmas and New Year on Puggle Farm
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Christmas. A long table lunch. Great company. The two mates who make regular appearances in the show are there with extended families. Nick making sure the prawns are fantastic and the lobster fresh. Ross roasting a superb home-kill goose over several hours. And roasting it over the best goose-fat drenched potatoes, too. I make shortbread and mince tarts and a raspberry and rose geranium sherbet.
There’s a real sense of summer in the valley. Every day hay is being cut and tedded and baled. I learn a new word each week. A swale can mean a gully cut at the contour to slow the descent of water. Scrumping is what you do when you’re stealing apples. And tedding hay means breaking up the clumps so that it dries evenly (which can also have the side benefit of distributing different species of grass so they’re well mixed throughout).
Hay is important here, where winter means little grows and so you have to – as the cliché suggests – make hay while the sun shines. I used plenty of it last winter to keep the cow in shape. Hay is nutritious. Silage, which is left greener and is partly fermented, is more so but the large, round bales are too big to get in the barn. Straw is just straw – the stalks of thick crops or grass – and is good for the pigs to sleep in and the chooks to lay in, but not so for feed.
As I drive around the Huon I see paddock after paddock turned into hay. First it’s cut, then left to dry, then baled. Lots of people still make square bales, the ones you can lift by hand. Two Italians who were staying at Puggle Farm helped a local stack 300 bales on the last day of the year. It was over 30°C and they came back looking sun struck and worn out. We went swimming to cool down and watched lightening, nature’s own fireworks, from a barn party as 2010 came into being.
There are now 13 pigs on the farm. Peter Pan is the boar, a mass of dark skin and hair, but gentle within. His consorts are Tinkerbell and Wendy. Tinkerbell is already with pig though not due for a couple of months. The rest of the porkers are fattening; eating export reject cherries and eating a swathe through my bank balance.
A chicken died. Two others that were given to me died of old age, but this one was egg-bound. That’s a condition where the bird can’t pass an egg properly and it sent her system septic. I buried Blossom, my most beautifully feathered Barnevelder, the one that followed me more than the others, in the paddock out front. It’s probably about time to breed up chickens again, ready to replace the ones that have died. I haven’t bought a chicken to cook since eating the ones we reared ourselves. I am afraid the flavour will be such a disappointment.
New electric tape crosses the paddock. Coco is going into heat and mooing, which must annoy the neighbours. The frequency and tone almost sends me bonkers. The forecast is for warm, sunny days and soon the squid will be running in the Channel. Garden beds are planted, mulched or fallow. For the first time in ages I feel that the farm is under control.
There are still a thousand jobs to do. Chores to finish that I started in May. Firewood to chainsaw and stack before the onset of winter. But there’s also the local Folk Festival to enjoy and long evenings to spend having picnics under the quince tree and a decent amount of food trickling in from the farm.
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Comments (22)
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06 Sep 2012 21:41 AEST
From:
mushrooms
Tassi has another bounty to collect - wild mushrooms.You will be surprised at the variety of delicious mushies one can find right here in Huon Valley .Speaking from my own experience.Let me know if you interested in doing a program on mushrooms one day or just interested - its a good sport. PS i am not looking for any kind of publicity.PPS just in case you wondering..
18 Apr 2012 12:09 AEST
From:
Inspired
Matthew, you have inspired us to do a medieval Bastille day feast in Adelaide raising money for charity, the Variety Bash. Fits our theme and foodie inspirations, 3 Musketeers, medieval times and great rustic but real flavoured food! I hunt for chickens like yours in Adelaide but left with that dull tasteless cardboard garbage that people get cheap...my wife and I have 14 acres here in Adelaide that we will grow all of our own meat and vegtables..If your in town, love to buy you lunch!
19 Aug 2011 11:39 AEST
From:
Puggle Farm
Congratulations Matthew. You have dared to do what so many of us simply dream about. My husband Matty & I await the start of your next series (25th of August-Matty put it on the calender!)). Our kids (7,8,14) watch with us & it's wonderful to have the 'paddock to plate' philosophy reiterated by your family on Puggle Farm. Good luck & kudos to SBS for supporting the adventure. Anna. ps: Your sons blonde ringlets are divine!
06 Jan 2011 22:08 AEST
From:
Rural living
Watched the first few episodes and I must say your enthusiasm and passion is catchy and the way you delight in the "small' achievements reflects your honesty. I often wonder though(being a true urbanite myself),at the end of the day when all your farm "chores' are done,do you ever get a sense of loneliness?
04 Mar 2010 20:13 AEST
From: Sydney
Hello, great show, can I visit?
Hi Matthew, Just started watching and loving the show. Good for you. I have to say for me it is better than river cottage. One it is on SBS (no foxtel) and two it is home grown. Can the public visit your farm? Do you still run cooking classes? I lived on a farm in NZ, Hawkes Bay for 10 years and watching the show just makes me want to visit Tassie and get back to home grown cooking. Kind regards Lesley
22 Jan 2010 9:43 AEST
From:
Am so envious of you!
Hi Matthew, you probably might not remember me from school but I used to be Kathy Jenkins and went to Weston Primary School with you and have watched your show from day one. The show where you were getting the pork ready for hanging and mentioned your primary school principal and the rolling pin in the same breath and then Mr Dunn, had me laughing for ages and brought back quite a few memories.
You are doing a fantastic job and bringing the beauty of Tasmania to everyday Australians.
Of course I remember you Kathy and you obviously remember Mr Dunn. Glad you are enjoying the show, even if it does seem an awfully long way from the hot, dry, inland town that we both grew up in.
- Matthew Evans
14 Jan 2010 21:17 AEST
From:
Love the Gourmet Farmer Show
Back again- to continue- Have watched the 1st two episodes and absolutely love it! Can't get enough-wish it were longer. We have visited the Huon Valley area twice now-love Home Hill Vineyard for lunch,the Peppermint Bay area, the Sheeps Milk Farm nearby, and the local raspberries-1/2 the price of Sydney.Our friends live in Hobart but we travel with them down your way every visit.Love to visit your Puggle Farm.Your style of growing/ eating/ cooking is very much ours. Well done!
14 Jan 2010 21:06 AEST
From:
Love your SBS Show-wish it were longer !!
First met you May 2002-did a Simon Johnson Cooking school with u -"How to with what's best on the day".Walked around Pyrmont Markets with u and 30 others choosing what was fresh and best on the day-back to Simon Johnson's to cook it. A great experience- Mandalong Lamb and your Strawberry & Rhubard Crumble are still cooked very often. Very excited to learn of your move to Tasmania.Our best friends (from Sydney) moved back to Tas 3 yrs ago-we visit often & love it. Huon area great.Wish you well.
That cooking class was the best I ever gave. It was, however, completely mental trying to buy all those ingredients and cook them in front of the class in a two or three hour period and give 40 or so people a taste. Great fun, though (even if the class did go well over time…).
- Matthew Evans
14 Jan 2010 20:23 AEST
From:
Gourmet Farmer
The same format and content as River Cottage, gets pigs and makes proscuitto, Chickens next. The thing it lacks is the beautiful way in which River Cottage was shot and the depth to which the characters involved were explored
14 Jan 2010 20:14 AEST
From:
only one piece of fish?
Loved the show, very entertaining, my only problem was when dinner served only one piece of fish for six people.I though tcountry people were big eaters?
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About this Blog
Ever wondered what it’d be like to leave a cushy city job and set up a small farm without any experience of rural life? Join Matthew Evans as he adjusts from being a restaurant critic to learning exactly where his food is coming from, on a farmlet in Tasmania’s beautiful Huon Valley.
Matthew Evans was once trained as a chef, before crossing to the dark side of the industry and becoming a restaurant reviewer. After five years and 2,000 restaurant meals as the chief reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald, Matthew realised that chefs don’t have the best produce in the land, normal people who live close to the land do. So he moved to Tasmania, to a small patch of earth where he’s raising pigs and sheep, milking a cow and waiting for his chickens to start laying.
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