Freckle Farm

Sam and I set off early Saturday morning to visit Freckle Farm. Nestled on the edge of the Pioneer Valley backing on to the beautiful Ben Mohr State Forest, Freckle Farm is leading the way in sustainable, local food production. As we pulled up to the property, we were greeted by two very friendly Maremma puppies and a piglet! Shortly following the welcoming crew were Rob, Deb and their three smiling girls, Hannah, Laura and Megan.

Both Rob and Deb are forth generation farmers. After purchasing the farm in 2008 they were able to start creating a natural system of food production that wasn’t reliant on chemical fertilisers.

“We talk about being regenerative more so than sustainable. If you are simply sustaining what exists, you’re not improving it.  We wanted to create a system that works towards improving the soil health for healthier plants and healthier food.”

Living a very happy lifestyle on this farm are cows, chickens and pigs.  Rob and Deb rotate these animals through different paddocks to ensure they are always grazing on natural, organic pastures.  “Biodiversity is critical because in a healthy ecosystem you will not see just one thing growing. The manure from our animals, incorporates organic matter into the soil providing nutrition for our plants.  The pigs, the chickens and the cattle all contribute to our system in different ways.”

If you are interested in learning more about Freckle Farm and how you can create similar systems with vegie gardens, compost, worms and other animals in your backyard, book in for one of their farm tours. Rob and Deb run both daytime and twilight farm tours as well as Biodynamics workshops.  https://www.frecklefarm.com.au/tours

Their local store on Nebo road offers a range of home grown, high quality, pasture-raised beef, pork and eggs along with a range of lamb and chicken from other producers. “If we can get more people serving up local produce to their friends and families, then we get an increase in demand and it becomes more financially viable for others to develop farms similar to ours.”

We are so thankful to the Freckle Farm family, not just for the grand tour of their property, but also for the efforts they have put in to educating the community and providing a local supply of delicious  food.  Be sure to sample some of their products this month.