The leaves are turning

The long dry summer has given way to emerald green paddocks, but, still, most farms could do with a bit of rain. Our apples are just about finished on the trees. The quince are in, most rescued green ...

So many births

Birth. More birth. More and more and more births.

We had 14 piglets over the space of a couple of days. Our youngest and oldest sows decided to farrow (give birth) at pretty much the same...

Chicken farms – what are they hiding?

Another week. Another story of animal cruelty. It seems, as Anna Krien wrote for...

Why I like pork

The thing I’ve learnt since I started growing a bit more than the family can eat is that the hard work only begins in the garden. Once you’ve harvested two rows of broad beans, eating as many as...

Homegrown tomato harvest

I reached adulthood about the time of the big NSW drought in the early 1980s. I remember the dust. Farmers could talk about nought but rain. I find myself doing the same.

Water issues plague...

When the land is dry

It’s dry. Very dry. Puggle Farm’s house garden, once watered by a pump, is suffering the worst I’ve seen. The pump now lives on our big farm, watering the vegie garden, keeping one small patch...

All our little victories

Tony, who did our grafting, said his dad had an expression for the kind of rain we get in summer. Drought rain: It wets a bitumen road, not a dirt road. Sounds unlikely, unless you live up a dirt...

The endless joys of eating local

What we do, what we farm, how my family lives and eats is driven by a philosophy. That it’s good to be as close to the source of your produce as possible. So if you can’t grow something,...

My apple orchard

So, the orchard is now looking a bit less lush. Gone are the overgrown tops. Gone are the thicker branches. In their place there are just tall stumps. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there’d ...

Plane food versus real food

Funny thing, real food. It seems so obvious. So ubiquitous. So glaringly present in our minds, but where is it when you’re away from home? For me, after a few days of travel, my body began to crave ...