Our beautiful 5 acre berry farm is located in Victoria’s Central Highlands region near the renowned spa town of Daylesford. We have rich volcanic soils and are nestled on a high plain that is dotted with small extinct volcanos. We use regenerative farming techniques (permanent raised beds, heavy mulching, integrating native flora etc) to produce summer berries (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries) as well as garlic for sale at local farmers markets. We also make a range of artisanal products in our commercial kitchen including smoked garlic and a range of jams and chutneys. We can offer quality accommodation in our well appointed barn conversion (you will have your own kitchen and bathroom) and lots of tasty organic produce. We (Ben and Rachel) both went wwoofing in our 20s and we look forward to providing quality wwoof experiences to a new generation of travelers, as well as giving our two young children the opportunity to meet people from different parts of the world. When we aren’t farming we are often bushwalking, bike riding, camping and exploring local festivals.
We both had positive experiences with wwoofing when we were younger and want to provide similar positive experience with others. We now have a diverse and busy small farm of our own and we could use some help to stay on top of everything that needs doing, especially in the summer months when there is lots of berry picking and jam making etc. We love travelling and meeting new people and now that we have a young family and a busy farm we don’t get much opportunity to travel overseas. We are hoping that by becoming wwoof hosts some of those cross cultural experiences will come to us!
Organic/Biological methods we use
As an organic (non-certified) farm we rely heavily on first tarping and then heavily mulching our production zones. We then hand weed and re mulch and tarp as required in our rotations. We produce our own compost on site as well as buying in some manure. We use a minimum tillage approach and only basic mechanisation on the farm including a 73 year old tractor for primary tillage and then a walking tractor for initial bed preparation. Ongoing bed work is down with hand tools including a broadfork.
