Ep 023 - Garden Recipes, Growing for your Family & Gardening Dreams with Paul West

In this episode, Averill and Bernadette chat with Paul West.  Paul West is a chef, passionate gardener, sustainability advocate and popular media personality. Paul reminisces with Averill and Bernadette about some River Cottage Australia memories, they share recipes and gardening dreams, and talk about his latest project; Grow It Local.  We also take listeners through Paul's book; Homegrown - a year of cooking and eating.

Links for further information:

Home - Grow it Local

Homegrown, A year of growing, cooking and eating by Paul West

River Cottage Australia - Wikipedia

WWOOF Australia | WWOOF – World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms

Home - National Arboretum

Home - Live Better, Longer - Blue Zones

Churchill Trust

Transcript

Before we start today, Seedy Chats would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri country, recognising their continued connection to this land. Traditional custodians of all our lands from the water running through our creeks, the air we breathe in our mountains and the stars that shine brightly in the sky. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Oh hello and welcome. Welcome. to Seedy Chats. Hello and welcome back. Welcome to Seedy Chats, the podcast where imperfect gardeners, Avril, that's me, and Bernadette. Hi, that's me. Chat about our favourite topics, gardening and life. So whether you're new to gardening, a seasoned pro or somewhere in between, join us on our journey to be mindful in gardening and life in general. As you know, Avril, I've been to Melbourne recently. You have. Had a lovely holiday. Trendy. The best holiday I've had in a long time. Apart from when we went to Melbourne and spent the day. Apart from that, apart from that. That's the holds the special place. But this was, you know, we had a lot of friends from overseas that I haven't seen in many, many years and they came over, they came over for the wedding and I met their daughter. They're all the Scots. The Scots and I hadn't met their daughter and their daughter and my daughter were like instant little friends. They just hung out the whole time. It was beautiful. So cute. and we went to a wedding and they had the bagpipes and all the Scottish traditions and the Kaley dancing. Oh, awesome. But my darling husband, so Mum came with us to help babysit, to give us a few nights off. Highly recommend. It was very relaxing. Thank you, Mum. You're the best. And on the way back, on the flight back, Andrew flew business and Mum, Charlotte and I flew an economy. So we get there and look. Andrew's six foot four, he does have trouble fitting in an economy seat but on top of that he needs to maintain a certain flight status credit for the whole family so that we can enjoy the perks that we've come to love. So he gets in, he sits in business class, we all ferry down the back. Charlotte has quite literally the biggest meltdown that she's ever had in her life. Because she wants her dad. She wanted that, she wanted mints, then she threw the mints, then she was spitting on me, slapping me like the whole, you know, the most embarrassing tantrum you can have as a mother where you're like, oh, she doesn't normally do this. Oh, I don't know what's come over her. And you're like, right. Get it together, she wouldn't have a bar of anything. At that, she finally passed out after tantruming, passed out, fell asleep. And Andrew said to me when he got off the plane that as hard as that was on me, It was even more stressful for him in business class having to listen to it and not be able to. Why couldn't he come down and take her up to business? By the time he came down, she was asleep and I was like, go away if she sees you, we are back to square one. Fuck off, Andrew. Take your lip chocolates and your champagne. That's, I mean, really, you should have put your mum up there. I said to him, you should have put mum up there. And the three of us in the back, he's got a lot of grits. I don't think he'll ever do that again. Oh, Bernadette, Bernadette. I am... I don't know, like if I can talk to this next guest, I'm so in awe. We're flying high these days. We are in the zone. Who are we talking to today? Today we have Paul West and Paul wears many hats. You might know him as the host of River Cottage Australia or the owner of Australia's famous dog, Digger. He cooks, he gardens, he pops up on various ABC programs, actually. He does that. back roads, maybe. He's a breakfast radio host. He goes around talking at a lot of festivals as well, garden festivals. Paul believes that the path to happiness winds through the garden, into the garden and onto a table full of your nearest and dearest. He reckons that a lot of the world's problems could be solved if people took more time to grow a bit of food, cook. some stuff from scratch and connect with family and friends. Couldn't bloody agree more with you, Paul. And you've got his book here today. I do, I have his book, Homegrown, A Year of Growing, Cooking and Eating. And it's a great book. I tell you what, if it was a year of eating in my household, it'd need to be a bigger book. You know what we commented on though, looking at this book together, how it was produced straight from the garden. Yes. So you looked at a recipe, just zucchinis. And that's all you needed. Like he's got this beautiful fresh zucchini salad, this one here, which is zucchini ribbons and roasted macadamias. Drool. But it's the kind of things that when you, that the way he's structured the recipes is you can harvest things straight from the garden and then deal with them and sort of some new and exciting ways to have them too. Like zucchini, you'll get to that point where you're a bit fatigued with zucchini slice. That's right. There's only so much zucchini slice that you can fairly well tolerate. Frittata, yep. So he's got some great and inventive ways of dealing with that. those gluts. And you are going to make one tonight, the barbecued corn with tangy sour cream dressing, which I'll kind of start to drill. I started to drill with all the recipes. You know, he does really well dressings and, and sources, which I think are really important when you, when you want to bring out the most and some fresh produce. And just some really practical ways of gardening. So I am going by his spring. So the whole book is broken out by seasons, which as gardeners we love and make so much sense, right? Yes. And so the first page of his spring section, and he has planting notes, so early spring, late spring, garden projects, and then some recipes. And what garden projects are you going to try this spring? Well, obviously raising my own seedlings. I tend to buy my seedlings. Oh, Bavaral, this is big growth. Tell me about this. I think I will, yes. Oh, I'm so proud of you. Yeah, I know, I know. I do wonder if I really, you know, I really want a greenhouse, but I don't have one. But I'm going to make do. I think we should buy a $5,000 greenhouse for this slightest slight interest you've shown. Craig will run with whatever. Get him to fabricate one out of copper. I think you might need to just make it a little... I thought it would be so beautiful. It would be awesome. It will be awesome. And so, yes, just following. I'm going to follow his some of his recipes as well. So you've skipped over this. What seedlings are you going to start? Oh, yeah. Tomato. Oh, Afro. Yeah, I know. Yeah, because I just feel those voluntary ones that always pop up every year. I'm just thinking, why haven't I just they always pop up in my bed. Why aren't I just dig my own little tomato plants in the kitchen like you have there? Yes. Well, you can. You can definitely do it. You're going to get a heat map. How hardcore are we going? I think I'll have to get a heat map, but I'm only going to get one. I know you've got two in there, but I think just one little tray of tomato seedlings. I've got two out currently, yes. No, I only have two. I would strongly recommend the first one that I've got, which is, there's one that's flexible and one that isn't. Okay. And the flexible one's just slightly larger, and you definitely have to buy a thermostat with it. So the thermostat is what, otherwise it will just run at whatever the predetermined... set point is, you get the thermostat that you plug in and you can set it to 25 degrees or 28 or whatever. I mean, is my electriSeedy bill going to be doubling by like 60% or something? No, they use very little. And you know what? The flexible ones, sometimes I use it to just proof dough or other things like that. Oh yeah? They can be quite handy. Yeah, right. testing and you sound great. If you just want to test there again, Paul. Yeah. Okay. No, I would have some eggs on toast. And your own eggs, I would think. Yeah, of course. Yeah. We've got some Barnaveldas, some little Bantam mixed breeds that we picked up for a song at the local poultry auction and some leg horns. So how many in total do you have? We've got 10 chooks in the backyard. We've got another two. heritage, when I say heritage I mean they're from a previous round of backyard layers, a couple of blocks but they're just there for matriarchal purposes now. They're retirees. They're retirees. Excellent. All right, well welcome to Seedy Chats. We are so appreciative of your time. Thank you so much for being generous. Oh it's my pleasure. Awesome, thank you. We ask everyone that comes on to our show what their first gardening memory is Paul. My first gardening with my mum, hardcore ornamental gardener, where I grew up in the Upper Hunter Valley in New South Wales. And it's not a good memory. It's my first memory is of the sound of a medium rigid tipper truck showing up in our yard in the school holidays and dumping about 10 cubic meters of mulch onto the front of our block. And her kind of looking at that and then looking at the shovel. And then looking at you. There's your school holidays, son. I'm being a little bit facetious, but I definitely remember growing up in a household where mum was and still is a really avid and amazing gardener. I didn't appreciate it until I got older. It was always just, I was just kind of slave mulch labour, slave mulch spreader labour, and her father as well was really amazing gardener as well. So there's intergenerational. the transfer of gardening love there. So yeah. And a lot of our guests talk about that full circle moment where they sort of don't realize but they're like, now that I think about it, it has actually come full circle a bit. It kind of stuck with you. It wasn't something that I left home going, oh, geez, I love gardening. So good. Like any 18 year old leaving home, there was other things that were more interesting to me at that stage of life. But now Cancelled the pub boys, I'm starting some seedlings. I could garden from sun up to sundown seven days a week now. If my life and schedule allowed it's my, there's no happier place on earth for me than being just poking around in my garden. Yeah. Feels hit up. We're all the same. We're all tragics. Yeah. No, no, it's not. It's great. We're trying to inspire people here. It's not tragic at all. It's great. We're it. I've heard you talk before and I don't actually know what this is called. So I might get you to, is it the wolf program? Woofing. Yeah. Woofing. Can you talk about woofing? Because it's wasteful. The woof program sounds good too. I should have been involved with that. Woofing is an international volunteer organization. It stands for willing workers on organic farms. So it's WWOOF. That's the organization and acronym all in capitals. And the premise of it is that there's hosts, woofing hosts and woofers. And if you're a host, you're generally on an organic farm or garden. and you exchange food and board for the wool fur to do four hours of work day for you. So it's a labor exchange on farms, usually organic. I'm pretty sure that's actually enshrined, they have to be organic. And it's a fair deal. It's a great deal. You kind of do four hours work to help out these farmers and they don't have to be commercial farmers. Often they're people with just lifestyle blocks, hobby farms that just need a little bit of extra help. And as a result, you get a a warm bed and a warm feed three times a day. So that's, that was a great result. And I just totally lucked out on my first experience in woofing. I was 21 and I was living in, well, I was traveling around Northern Tasmania and someone suggested that I have a look at the organization and they thought that I'd enjoy it. And I just got the book, paid my membership and just had a scan through the local area and just landed on a farm that I liked the sound of. And it turned out to be just this paradise. I was actually. It was the locality where the farm is, is called Paradise. Really? Just outside Sheffield, northern, kind of the centre part of northern Tasmania. And the fella was Jules Carabin. He was a French, he is a French guy. And he emigrated to Australia as a skilled trades person in his, I'm going to say late teens or early twenties and has been living in Australia ever since. And he'd traveled around working as a carpenter and furniture builder and eventually settled in northern Tasmania. And Jules grew up. outside of Lyon, which is a real food hub in France. Yeah. Kind of the gastronomical capital in terms of market and stuff, maybe not the three Michelin star, but certainly the kind of grassroots food culture is really centered around Lyon and the villages around there. And he grew up in a little French village outside of Lyon. So, you know, all those kind of like storybook French villages that we hear about where there's, you know, there's a market every day and everyone's buying this amazing, and everyone's buying food in the morning and they're all preparing meals from scratch. So that's what he grew up with. And when he moved to Tasmania, that's what he set out to replicate that kind of farm. So from memory, it was about 60 acres, the property, and it was never meant to be a commercial farm. So he had like milking animals. He ran a few like grazing animals for the freezer. He had an amazing garden. He had an amazing chook run. He had a goose run. He grew hazelnuts. It was, yeah, it really, really was. And I've never experienced anything like it. Like I grew up in rural New South Wales. place called Maraundala, which had population 900. So country living wasn't anything new to me. But that European sensibility of rural living was where everything you do is in some way guided by putting food on the table. And not just in that like workaday sense of putting food on the table, but you know, the actual labours that you undertake have a direct impact on the food that you grow. And I stayed a month with Jill and it was just one of the most amazing months of my life. You know, we woke up before the sun. We had like a wood fired oven in the, in the, in a kind of like slate floored kitchen. And we'd prepare everything from scratch. And then we'd work. I'd ended up just working all day for him. It wasn't just like four. It was like I'd work again from sun up to sundown. Cause I was just loving it so much. And my body. bonding so well to it. You know, as a young... Is it fair to say that's where you caught the gardening bug? Is that where it really got you? Yeah, I think that's where I kind of came to realise the power of it. Yeah. You know, once you realise that, that you can create a life around food and around nature and gardening is pretty much one of the greatest vehicles for doing that. If you want to connect food and nature and community together and all three of those things, I think are a pillar of healthy human existence. And gardening is the one that's kind of, I like to refer to it as a bit of a silver bullet, you know, it's, I can't really think of any ale that gardening doesn't really fix. Yeah. And I love, I love the way that you bring community. I've heard you speak before about community and the term self-sufficiency, because we talk about this a lot on the podcast. I mean, it took a while for Bernadette. I didn't get it. She didn't get that. I don't like cable usually. I saw them as a hindrance. Just a lone wolf on the wolfing program. Different kind of wolfing. Yeah. But now I'm really starting to get it. And I think that's, you know, I see it a lot in your Grow It Local program too, where that's really extending that community net, because I mean, I can grow a lot of garlic, but I can't grow everything. And Avril can grow. you know, a lot of artichokes, but you know, you need, you need to be working. And I don't like eating them. They're an awesome flower. I say, I feel really accomplished with the flower. Everywhere she goes, she's like, that's what over there needs an artichoke flower. Yeah, they're a great sculptural plant, you know, good, good plant to fill the hunger gap in spring. That's right. It's kind of like. I love growing Cavalonero as well because it looks quite spectacular and I can go on forever and ever and again I feel quite accomplished but it just has that beautiful structure in the garden but going back to the community I think it's really refreshing and especially everything you've done in your career as well, I'm referring to River Cottage and it seemed quite self sustainable but there was still a lot of community activity wasn't there? I still remember you trying to join the CWA. I was the emcee for their state conference two years ago. So I kind of did a huge bush dance with about 120 delegates from all over New South Wales and Australia. That's awesome. They've come back on a remembership. They said we can't make you an official member, but you are. You're an honorary member. I love that they've held firm. I love it. Sorry, fella. You're out. Community is so essential, you know, and if you have a look at any sort of long lived society on earth, any sort of pre-industrial era, I mean, we kind of have popularly coined the Blue Zone communities, Blue Zone diets, and diets often made a focus of the Blue Zone communities. But another... lifestyle component that really underpins the longevity of those people is a dynamic and omnipresent community life. There's no opportunity for isolation. Generally, they're evolving around small villages, not around large land holdings where people live in kind of modest individual quarters, but there's a central piazza or there's a village square or there's a market and people tend to grow in allotments and have a more subsistence agriculture surrounding the urbanized component of the village. And I mean, that's something that's so essential for human health. I mean, we look at what's going on in the developed world or the Western world now with this pandemic of loneliness that's striking people. We're more connected than ever before, but really people are also feeling hugely isolated because we don't have these mechanisms for connecting with one another as meaning anymore. And really, the peak of the connection hierarchy is food and sharing a meal with people. It defies all language barriers, defies all life barriers. Like everyone needs to eat multiple times a day. And it's the great leveler to get there and share and slow down and turn your devices off and swap and share stories and connect. And I mean, that's just sitting at the table, but then once you go back that little bit further and you become a gardener or a grower, what I really like about that as a process for contribution to society and your community is it kind of switches you from consumer to producer, which is a rare quality or attribute. in our modern society. We've got creators now, the creator economy for the digital world, but really every gardener is a creator, every gardener is a producer. And I love that it shifts the mindset of scarSeedy to abundance. Once you start growing food, you realize that it just keeps coming, especially if you plant six zucchini plants in a flush of enthusiasm in spring. One dill plant, you'll have dill forever. That's right. And then you become this great... source of nourishment for your family and your friends and your community. Cause once you've had your fill of. Zucchinis in December, then, you know, about 20 yards of it. We just talked about that. Didn't we just did your introduction. We just recorded it before you came on and it's all good. But we were commenting on your book because we opened it. on the page of the zucchini, was it called a salad or? Zucchini and macadamia salad. Macadamia salad. Oh, I like that. And Brent was like, that's awesome because, you know, you can only have so much omelet, like frittata. Zucchini slice. How many zucchini fritters? And just genuinely, you know, it's come from the garden. You don't need really anything else to go with it, but it's a different form of how to eat it. That's a different aspect to your book that you don't see in a lot of others, is that really you could be out in the garden. and go, oh yeah, I'm gonna make that zucchini. Like it is inspired by the garden, not inspired by the end dish. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, that's ultimately the base of all cuisines, right? This kind of recipe-led cookery is a very modern phenomena of the kind of modern food system where you can just assume you've got everything on tap at a supermarket, or if you're in the restaurant context, a quick call to the wholesaler away. But all the great cuisines of the world have really evolved from seasonal abundance. from cooking with what you have at a certain time of year, cooking it fresh, preserving it for times when there is an excess or abundance. And I mean that underpins every single cuisine on earth. So I think like a garden-led cuisine really is the pinnacle way of learning how to cook. And sometimes I feel, you know, I'm kind of overdoing it a little bit, forcing my hand when I'm writing recipes for this stuff, because usually I just eat stuff really fresh out of the garden. It might just be like... something, a little bit of olive oil cooked on the barbecue, salt, or just straight up raw, you know, in summer. It tends to do very little cookery in summer, but you know, you can't have a cookbook based around and brush olive oil on that and barbecue. Brush olive oil on that. I don't know, it kind of excited us because then the next recipe was corn. And Bernadette took a photograph of that and we were like, that's just one, I mean, there was a dressing with it, but it was just one really ingredient. you know, celebrating the ingredient. Yeah. And it's, you know, Avril and I love, there's nothing more inspiring than going out to the garden, seeing what you've got ready and going, oh gosh, kohlrabi. Well, I guess we're going to have kohlrabi for dinner. What I'm going to do with it. And that takes you on the whole journey. It makes a really good remoulade. We like it with white sauce. Oh, so do you. Steamed it with some white sauce, some silverside. I don't actually think I've ever eaten kohlrabi. I actually had it, I actually, if you don't mind, Paul, I did have a level up suggestion to one of your recipes. Oh God, here we go. So the potato rosti, very popular in my household, one of our favorites. And what we add to it is about half potato or two thirds potato, parsnip. And then if it's ready, the parsnips really dry. If it's ready, we'll also sometimes throw in some fresh beetroot, but we put that through two tablespoons of flour, one egg, salt, pepper. And we have bruschetta on top. So it's like the fatty, crunchy hash brown. And the sitting bruschetta, it's so good. I'm ripping that off for the next cookbook, for sure. Yeah. Brenda, shall I go put the kettle on? It's cup of tea time. Actually, you know what? This morning we were talking and we were saying how River Cottage was the first nearly like my kitchen rules for us. Well, I remember- Or no, MasterChef. Well, for me the first one was Huey, right? We had Huey. Yeah. He was like, I'm going to get you guys. He was like, I'm going to get you guys. And then, so I think just about when he stopped, you started, right, with my River Cottage. Yeah, I'm sure the overlap of that would be, but it'd be pretty close, yeah. And in our household, for some reason, the only show all the kids could agree on was cooking shows and mum liked it too. So it was just a staple growing up for us watching the show and watching all your adventures. So I wanna thank you for all your hard work on that because it's such great content for our, and you didn't get a lot of it in Australia at the time. And it was quite a different, pretty different than the normal cooking shows that we'd had up until then. I'd say that we don't get any more of it now either. Other than reruns of River Cottage, it's not something that, you know, really is what makes for classic commercial television. There's no competitive aspect. It's really collaborative, community-based. And I think that the kind of values of the program is one of the reasons why it's been so enduring. We last shot River Cottage in 2015, and I just had a guy at the supermarket today, just this morning, go, I saw episode one. I was like, on season one, episode one. And I'm like, it's just, it's perennial because it's not. It's not a fad or a fashion, it's just celebrating those qualities of a great, simple human existence of growing your food, of connecting with the community, of just celebratory living. So yeah, it endures. It does show the glamorous side to self-sufficiency. What principles have you taken from there that you've gone, do you know what, that really works and you still do it now? Yeah. Okay. So what principles did I take from there? I think like... leaning on your community for sure is knowing what you're good at and knowing what you're not good at and not trying to be good at everything and not trying to do everything. Because you can't do everything. That's right. You just do everything, you end up doing everything poorly instead of doing a couple of things really well. The thinner you spread yourself and then also that notion of just being able to give to the community as well. know, to be able to dig in and help and really how powerful food is in a way of contributing to community activities. Yeah, that's your bridge to a lot of these people, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, for sure. In some instances on River Coders, even now I paid for thousands of dollars worth of work. With a tray of Monte-Carlo's, thanks for that. No, of course we paid off. I actually watched that episode. I actually watched that episode last night where you made the Monte Carlo marmalade. Yeah, yeah, I watched that last night. It was great. I am I sat there and I said to Craig, can you just find me? Pop on River Cottage there. I want to have a quick a quick binge. It was on binge. It's binge and Fox till now. I think is there any other way? But yeah, so I watched that and I went to bed starving. But I actually think it was. I actually think. That's where my hunger started was watching River Cottage. I grew up in a garden store, but the whole the whole sustainable, like trying to do your own thing. I think that's where I got my grow. We say in Ireland to grow, but my love for it. And and it brought back so many memories that myself and my husband used to sit and watch, watch it together. And it was great. Like it was fantastic. So good. Well, I'd like to think anyway that it was in reach for a lot of people. The food wasn't so complicated that it didn't feel attainable. And again, there was no competition, no stress. It was all celebratory and people kind of looking after one another and chipping in. And we just don't see a lot of that on television. There's no drama. There's not a lot of drama to it anyway. So, you know, and everyone in television wants a bit of drama and competition and elimination and all that kind of stuff. So. But at the heart of our lives and existence is what we want to have good food with good people. That's right. Would you not do another? Are they not going to try and play it? I mean you're kind of saying that there's nothing like it out there now. Like what's good with good old wholesome television? Yeah. Come on. Come on, good old wholesome TV. Yeah, it could be your lake house. Yes. That sounds alright. Geez, look it out. Well, you know, that's always an option, I guess. And it's something that over the last, since the end of River Cottage, right the year after, no, River Cottage ended the year after my first kid was born. Okay. And then I had another kid since then. And then, you know, we've been, I've just been working to, you know, keep a roof over our heads. My kids are eight and six now. How has gardening changed with having a family and children? Like, cause I know our gardening has changed a wee bit with, with our children. Yeah. Cause I have to grow most things that my daughter demands now. And then I grow, then I put in a whole bloody, a whole bloody crop of them. And then all of a sudden she doesn't eat them anymore. Cause that's how kids work. That's right. You're a bad, bad client. No, you don't get, you don't get as much allocation of. bed space next season. That's right. So how's gardening change now that I've got? Yeah, for you. Well, I guess, like for me, I guess it's something that, that it's more important than ever now, right? Like now that I've got kids, because now I'm imprinting on them that, that world of growing and, and of tending plants and, and in a world like now we're in this such an instant gratification world, you know, like they can't believe that I just had two TV channels growing up. You know, and I didn't get to choose. Oh, it's so true. Now they're like, what? Two? Like, that sounds bad, dad. Uh, but now, you know, when you've got everything at your fingertips and all the information in the world, to be able to have a process that takes three months is amazing and they're engaged that whole time. It's amazing. Like you don't have to sit down and watch a plant grow for eight hours a day, but it's a part of the daily routine to come out, especially around germination. looking at it, little heads coming up, so fixated and fascinated. And then they're watching these plants grow and watching flowers set, watching fruit form and watching fruit or, you know, the vegetable ripen and then harvesting and then they're excited to eat it. And that's a process that's taken three months. You know, like it doesn't, we don't get a lot of that. And the other thing that I like is we move when we moved into our block here in Bermagui on the New South Wales South Coast. It was somewhat of an established garden, but it's one that we've been kind of in blocks, kind of changing, taking out some of the old stuff and putting, you know, the garden that we want in there and planting a lot of fruit trees and a lot of native trees and being able to communicate to them. That's like when you're my age, you'll be able to come and sit under the shade of this tree. Now, like your little thing now, but one day you'll be as old as me and this tree will be eight meters tall and it will be huge and you'll be able to sit under it and go. I was there the day this tree got planted. Because where else does that lesson exist anymore? You know, that's really special. Where does it, you know, like where, where do you have that connection now? That like that inter year connection? And I mean, I'd like to think gardening is stronger than ever, but and you look at any new housing development and gardening is such a life of thought, you know, it's like, I feel so lucky. We're gonna live on an 800 square meter block. So it's not, you know, it's not the classic Aussie quarter acre, but it's certainly not. you know, small bony stretch of the imagination. And it's just, it's perfect. Like there's so much to do on an 800 square meter block. And I love that, you know, after moving around a lot as an adult, just having one space that you can just really refine and make your own. And I've been thinking about this lately about the joy of gardening is that you can technically you can buy a garden, right? Like you can go to a red hot landscape gardener and pay a million bucks. I've got to make this a landscape. architect and gardener and SA and he's like we do regular million dollar gardens. I'm like what? Gardeners themselves and it's irreplicable. You can't buy a garden like that. You know if you're a gardener and you've got your own garden it's such a personal expression of who you are and you're so intimate with every plant that was put there, every paver that was laid, every little trellis that you put in there. Like you just money can't buy that. You know. to my garden. I totally understand that feeling. Yeah and recently Bernadette was saying oh maybe I'd like a little bit more land and she was but you were all going back to I can't leave the soil. I've spent so much time improving the soil. Well you can just go denser. That's right. Back more plants in. I do we've speleate across the fence line we're on about a 650 square metre block but we've still got about 10 fruit trees and we are probably about I would say just under 20 square metres of gardening space. Like we still produce. It's spectacular what you can grow in a small backyard, it's great. And sometimes I feel like less is more for that, especially after living on 20 acres, you know, to circle back to a question that you asked earlier, that you don't need a lot of space, really. I don't think like, if you want to keep livestock, yes, you need space. But if gardening more than livestock is your jam, you don't need 20 acres. Because you're gonna be doing a lot of mowing and not a lot of gardening. Yeah, a lot of upkeep. Well, I've got six acres and I only farm a fraction of that and the rest of it is just rock and I got wind. I got alpacas to try and keep the grass down and yeah, it's really hard work. Really, really hard work. The only regret that I have about being on a small block is my inability to plant park trees. Yeah. giant, you know, I'd love one of my kind of fantasies in later life would be to plant an arboretum that would be, you know, late stage and probably one that I would never get to see the shade truly enjoy the shade of, but certainly, you know, that's something just to plant a huge park like tree space would be, you know, that's a fantasy of mine. Seedy Chums, just taking a second to remind you to follow us on our Instagram, Seedy Chats. So for those people at home that are fantasising about having their own home garden, Grow It Local is the great first step, right? So do you want to talk to us about the program and what it offers people? Yeah, OK, I'd love to talk about grow local. And thanks for saying that it is such a great first step. So there was a great iconic or landmark study by the Australia Institute in 2015 around food production in backyards in Australia. And they identified the three key barriers of time, space, and experience or knowledge when it comes to people getting started in the garden. And we can't necessarily help people with time. And while we can't directly help them with space, we can help them with education and that's the real pay for us. And we wanted to create a platform that was specifically designed to educate people how to grow food and to connect food growers around Australia, connect more experienced people with less experienced people and for people to be able to connect with other food growers in their neighborhoods. And it's been going for a few years now and we've found that it's just a great group of people to work with as you guys. both know and appreciate yourselves that gardeners are such just generous sharing wonderful human beings. It's just a space that's so unbelievably loaded with good vibes. The downside to gardening really is that like there's no clickbait article, the dark side of gardening. If you've lost faith in humankind, meet some gardeners. That's my recommendation. Absolutely, yeah. So true. They're so generous and everything's done on, you know, with, um... frugality and thriftiness and creativity. And they're just a great group of people. And we found that so many people want to learn how to begin to garden, but it's a really, with this explosion of information in the world, it can be difficult to find the right information. So when we started, we thought, well, that's where we come in to be able to curate content that's specifically designed for gardeners. And it could be stepped out in terms of where you are in your gardening journey, and you can feel supported. to be able to actually have that success because, you know, people try, you know, they get the idea to go to garden and they go to, you know, some major hardware shop and buy all the stuff and they get no advice and they buy crap oil to put in their raised beds and then they don't work for two weeks. And then they think it's them, but it's not. That's kill. Yeah, they do. It's amazing. Well, you've watched a YouTube video on a guy in America starting his tomatoes. Yeah. Arkansas, why isn't it working for me? Yeah, that's right. I'm a typical west, where it's temperate and two meters of rainfall every year and no 40 degree days. That's right. And people think that just because you kill one plant, you're a bad gardener. But I always tell people, I've killed so many plants. It's part of being a gardener. Don't you have to do that? I don't. You have to do that. Sailor man, move on. Bernadette, when Bernadette started first gardening. You weren't planting at all at outer season. I didn't know that you had to plant certain stuff at certain times. So I was like, oh mum, I'm starting zucchini. She's like, oh, why? Why are you doing that now? Because I want to. Yeah. Have you got a heated greenhouse? And there was a great saying that I heard from a guy at a garden being once, he was like, I don't kill plants, I just make compost. Yes, that's right. It's always stuck with me. I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. Good. You know, and to your point, Bernadette, there's so much. assume knowledge. It's like sailing. Like if you're a sailor and you grew up in a sailing household, you know what all the bits are called. And if you're someone who's not a sailor, you listen to people who are sailors talking, what language are you talking? Why do you talk? One of that makes sense. Isn't that a sail and a steering wheel? Isn't that all you need to kind of know? And I think garden has a little bit of that. And so much, I guess so many of the books for gardeners are by gardeners. It's kind of to the informed, the people like .. I'm like, there's not, and that's where I wanted to step into a degree with some of the stuff that I write in my books. And what we do with grow local is it's kind of go like, let's assume you know nothing about gardening because it's probably the truth, you know? And there's no shame in that whatsoever. But what we can do is get you started and get you hooked and get the green bug in there. And next thing you'll know, you'll be a garden. plant fanatic like the rest of us poor tragics. And you can join in with the program too. So I know you've got a seed subscription service where you people will get seeds at the right time of year. And then for example, if you're starting a summer salad you'll all start it together and you really hold people's hand and step them through with tutorials every single step of that process. Yeah, so we do offer a seed service which you can. look at it, check out the website growlocal.com and its current iteration is a seasonal delivery of three varieties of plants that are specifically curated for seasonable suitability and to create a dish at the end. So we've done costa spina coppida, we've done caprese salads, we did a garden salad, we've currently got a pasta primavera in works maybe. I think that's the next one that's coming out. We did some sprouting over winter to accommodate the fact that a lot of people aren't growing stuff in winter and making like goodness bowls out of the sprouts people grow in their jars and their kitchen shelves. So always starting beginning with the end in mind in that sense is that we kind of start with the dish concept or a recipe concept and reverse engineer three varieties of seeds that then go into that. And yeah, people grow as a part of a community. There's regular kind of post-outs for the membership. And then once they get their seeds, they have access to a digital content journey, which is access through the back of the seed packet. Everyone gets their own personalized dashboard and you can kind of move down the steps of growing through the whole plant life through to cooking it right at the end. Uh, so there's always good information there everywhere you need it. So if you're at germination stage, you can click on the germination video and go, what's going on? Like how long should it take? What should I be doing to the bed? prepare for germination or tending, troubleshooting, all those bits. So, and I mean, these aren't like enormous pieces of content. So, you know, and they're not creative for YouTube value, you know, they're not like we tried entertaining and we do make it, but they're more for just straight up distilled information or like timely information people need at that stage of their growing journey. And we've found that people have really. resonated with it. They really felt that support has been hugely beneficial to their growing journey. We see lots of people sharing great stuff with them growing along on social media. And if all that fails, then we've also got help available in the form of our Farmer Alana garden guru. So you can always reach out to someone in the Grow It Local team and they'll troubleshoot your problems directly. That's fantastic. I've just signed up to the seed service by the way. Yeah, oh nice one. I was on the complimentary platform and I was like, oh, I can't help it. I just have to, yeah, have to get involved. It's great. And that's going to give you, I've heard you talk about this before. We've got our normal five senses, but this is going to give Avril an extra sense, isn't it? Oh yeah. They are. So yeah, there's the, the senses of taste, you know, that kind of sour, sweet, bitter, salty. And then for me, there is the great sixth taste that I'd like to think that I have. not have identified haven't invented it but I've certainly identified it and that is the taste of smugness and that is overwhelming sense of taste that you get when you are eating something that you've grown yourself. Is there any better feeling when you put it to go oh yeah I grew all that yeah even if you got a little bit of it it's so like smugness is just off but even if you just grew the parsley that you sprinkle over the top on the end the smugness flavour is so strong. It's like you did the whole thing. Yeah. It's like you made the balls out of clay that you dug out. That's what it's like. My family now, I'll put something out like, there'll be saffron in it. They're like, did you grow the saffron? I'm like, no, mum, I didn't grow the saffron. Even me, I've got the free membership. But when you click on there, I can see workshops and there's all these workshops in my area locally in Canberra and the surrounds. They're showing you things that you can do from, you know, bee stuff and soap stuff. Yeah. That's important to me because I would like to think my smugness could get. a little bit smugger and have my own soap. I mean, that's what that's part of what we're wanting to what we've wanted to achieve is to be able to have that the community and the free community. There's no power wall. There's no, not for the workshops. Anyway, there is a service to be getting physical products. So that makes sense. But for the workshops, they're all free and we try to bring in, you know, the best of the best from around Australia. And you get to, you get to sit there, listen to them and you get to ask questions at the end. That's great. Like it's so, you know, if you're watching all this content on social media, if you're watching television, you can watch how tos and it's great. But then you kind of switch off or move on. Whereas in this instance, if you've got burning questions, just let them rip. And the people are there directly. You know, there's no. Yeah, no, it's the community aspect is brilliant. And then someone else that we had podcasted with, which you've spent time with, Fiona from Ainslie Urban Farm. Oh, what an inspiring human being. is Fiona. She's literally you know next door neighbours to one of the pioneers of permaculture. Like she was sitting here recording with us in person I thought this is part of history. She's part of history yeah it was very special and we learned so much from her. She's part of history but she's also got an incredible vision for the future. She's also got this incredible Churchill. That's right the Winston Churchill yeah. investigate urban farm ventures that provide vocational pathways for aspiring food growers. And if you want a good read, track that down. Because you're going to get a Churchill fellowship to travel the world to look at people using gardens as a space to get people into meaningful employment, especially high risk populations like ex-inmates or kind of groups and cohorts that find it hard to get employment. And the impact that growing food has on them and their futures is massive. And she's trying to get one going in camera. So. Yeah, for sure. I love making pickles and preserves and jams, all the good stuff. Yeah. I haven't done any meat preserving since leaving River Cottage. I made a couple of hamons or prosciutto as well as there and some salami, but now that I'm raising my own livestock, not so much. And certainly ferments as well. We love a bit of sauerkraut and ferments in our household. And again, that's just something where once you're growing it and you've got a surplus, you're like, well, what am I going to do with this? Like, I don't want to feed it to the chooks. I mean, the chickens or the compost is an absolute last resort. Ideally, you know, you've gone to all that effort of growing this amazing food. And so it's great to be able to crack open a jar of your own passata that you grew and made from summer or some pickles and preserves, because that stuff just never goes, like it's never not welcome, you know? Or even stock. You've got a great chicken and beef stock recipe in the book, but... I've just started canning stocks, so I've sort of crossed that threshold now. Pressure canning. No one's died in the family from botulism, so I'll keep going. Once you use your own stock, pretty hard to go back to a, to a manky old stock cube, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. You know, and that's something, that's certainly something that we keep regularly. We usually make a stock once or twice a week and just keep, you kind of keep some fresh for cooking and drinking and. and use other bits for just keeping it in the freezer. So I've always got some at the ready. It's funny you should mention canning the stock because I just saw some content from an American food grower that I follow on Instagram and she was canning stock. And I was like, oh, like I never even thought. They're great in America. So you've got a pressure can it. So I make it, I sort of do stock up Sundays, same sort of thing. And we pretty much use what we make, but there's always those small periods where I'm picking the stock out of the fridge and I'm like. it's been too long. So when I've got a big batch, we pressure can it and my understanding is it gets a little bit hotter in the pressure canner so it kills anything off and then it's shelf stable so you can have it all year round, especially if you've got a gluff of anything. Yeah, all right. Well, you've inspired me now. Pantry is amazing with her. What's the pressure canner? Is that like a Vekola or something like that? Yeah, so it's It's a little bit scary when you first use it. And my husband was walking in the kitchen and he literally walked in with an umbrella. He was like, are you gonna kill us all? But once you get over it, basically you learn how many, how your elevation, your altitude, and then that'll depend, you put a little topper on top and that'll regulate the amount of pressure that it lets out depending on how many feet above sea level you are. And then you put a little bit of water in the bottom with your stock and then it... just heats it up and then you slowly drop it down and it's shelf stable. And so the stock is just a straight up stock recipe. There's no like additional- It's the exact same stock you're making now. It's just the pressure canning process means it'll last on the shelf because it seals it and it gets hot enough. It moisturises it essentially. Yeah. Yeah, incredible. That is incredible. I love that. Well, I know I'm gonna be looking out for a pressure canner now. I do. I'm inspired, I'm totally inspired by this. We've actually got a great tool library here on the South Coast of the South Island. It just expanded into a food tool library. So I'm sure you can't have more for that. Yes. Because you only use it a few times in the year. You're not using it all the time. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, what, and it's so great again to have that as the, as the kind of food library, like I just love that because it's, you know, it makes sense for the garden machinery, but you didn't very rarely see it with like, you know, those kind of big bulky preservation items. that you only, like I said, only use twice a year. Otherwise just taking up space in the shed. It's just great to know that I can book at a time to use it and have it in the way you go. And then you can do anything. You can do your own beans. If you know, it's so convenient sometimes to have just beans already hydrated in the jar. Yeah, it'll be unstoppable. I love this. Oh, I'm gonna have to build a garden shed pantry. each the shelving just to accommodate all the stuff I'm going to can. Do you know what? Bernadette also makes her own vanilla essence. I'm actually growing vanilla now too. This is another one. This is going to blow your mind. Wait till I tell you. And I drink a certain tea that I really like called Melbourne Breakfast. It's from Tea2 and I just I love it. It's got a bit of a vanilla aroma to it. And I send it home to all my friends in Ireland. They love it. And someone told us, I said, I'm out of my Melbourne breakfast, I have to go get this. They said, just put a bit of vanilla essence in your tea and it's the same. So if you just have a black tea, just put some vanilla essence in. And I went, oh, right, okay. So the other morning, I sent Brenda a picture of me putting her vanilla essence into my tea. But then I thought, oh my God, because Brenda's vanilla essence is only. It's vodka. Vodka and vanilla. And vanilla. So I was just like, did I just put vodka into my morning tea? You didn't make a shit hot tea out of it. We need to have an intervention, Abel. Are you okay? It was only a little bit. Because I was home alone, I had to drive my kids to... But yeah, anyway, I had vodka in my tea, but it was very nice. Tell me how you settled in Bermagui. It's beautiful around there. Well, my wife and I were here for River Cottage, obviously. Not so much in Bermagui. We were living in Tilbury at that stage. And we were looking around to our home back in the kind of mid 2018s. And we weren't sure where we wanted to go. We definitely wanted a bit more of a village than Tilber. Tilber is a great little village, but it's also like a tourist kind of town as well. You know, so, and I guess a lot of people and we're looking at Naruma and we're looking at Burma-Gui and then we just found. a great house in Bermagui and back in 2015 and it's right in the middle of town, you know, it's where, oh, you're still on the farm. I'm like, no, I've moved off. I'm in town. They're like, oh, what's wrong with you? I'm like, well, I'm not, I'm like literally in the centre of town. I'm like a block, I'm a block from everything. And I have to leave Bermagui. Everything's on foot. Yeah. You know, I can, I can see the ocean from a corner of my vegetable patch. My garden's got ocean views, which is about a pinnacle of gardening triplets. you can imagine. And we just live such a rich and full life where we are in Bermagu. I have spent a lot of time, I've got a little shack down the Sand Coast and I love it. I love going down there. And even it brought back memories of the sage markets, the farmers markets. Yeah, Maria, yeah, I just love, I haven't been to them now in a while, but if Christmas falls around then... I always kind of work to go and get my produce there, but it's a great little market. It's the South Coast. Oh, one of the best. Yeah, and we really like it here because it's still like a rural community. You know, it is a holiday destination as well come summertime, but it hasn't gone the same way as the North Coast. Yeah. And even some of those. areas three hours within that three hour bracket south of Sydney. It still really is the kind of place where you can walk down the street in winter and it's pretty much just people that live here and everyone says good day. You know, you know everyone and because we grow up, you know, because they're in the middle of town they just feel like the whole town's their kind of playground and they know all the shop owners, they know all the old people, they know the people on the corner and you know all that stuff. I love it. That's great and even because I know when it gets busy where I am, you just plan your day around it right? So I'd be up and gone and get all my things done. Like if it's past eight o'clock, I start to panic going, oh God, the tour is over. Even though I am kind of a tourist. Shop first thing in the morning when everyone's thinking about going to the beach. So let's do our groceries at seven or eight in the morning in the peak periods. And then we go to the beach like everyone else. And then instead of getting in a car and driving back to our accommodation, we walk home. Yeah, winner. And feel very smug when we come out. Smugness again. And you've got family in Melbourne as well, don't you? So it's... I'm a wife, I was. Yeah. Melbourne girl, born and bred. So she's down there at the moment actually. Oh, okay. And yeah, I grew up in the Hunter Valley, the upper Hunter Valley. Okay. A town called Mururundi. So all my family's still up, upper Hunter Way there. But they're all in Scone. Can I sneak in one more question? Go ahead. Is there a significance of the tattoo? We love it. Oh, there it is. Yeah. I don't know. It was the footage there. It's upside down obviously. And then here we can see a beautiful tree. It's a grey ironbark. So it's a tree that is very common around the area that I grew up in, in the Upper Hunter Valley. And it was, I split a lot of ironbark firewood as a young man because when mum was chopping off the mulch... When you weren't mulching. Yeah, when you had time off. Yeah, my little sister never had to do any of this stuff. It's not a reason to do it. And it wasn't until I left home and bought my first $20 bag of servo wood that I realized how just how hard splitting iron bark is. It's certainly a very, very tough wood, but I actually got the tattoo right before I left Newcastle in my early twenties to go and work at a restaurant in Melbourne, which at the time was the best in Australia. And I knew it was a really hard environment. I'd be going into a very difficult environment, a very tough environment. And so I got the tattoo as a reminder that you can grow and persevere even under adverse conditions, because the ironbarks grow on the crappest soil. You know, it's the old adage that if you go to look at a rural property and it's got ironbarks on it, just turn around at the gate and go back, because it's good for nothing except firewood. But as a result, despite that, despite the poorest of poor soil conditions, they kind of grow into these huge, magnificent, powerful trees. So for me, that was a little... Something I could like stamp on my arm to remind me of my home, remind me of my roots and remind me that even when things are tough you can persevere. Is there anything Paul you wanted to talk to our listeners about that we haven't touched on today? Yeah, well I just think that if you're listening to this podcast, chances are that you're already a gardener and so one, I'd like to encourage you to become a free member of Grow It Local because we do a lot of great reporting around the impact of what gardeners are doing as well as part of our annual membership survey because I think you're doing the most important work on the planet. know as a backyard food grower or someone that's connected with gardening there's not enough of us we need more people imagine the world where everyone is growing food and tending gardens great place that would be you know because we're fostering biodiversity we're growing nutritious food we're building community connections we're building small we're doing all this stuff that is going backwards in the world and gardeners are kind of the ones actively turning the tide at the grassroots level so if you're a gardener good on you you're my type of people i love your work and keep it up. adrenaline still going. Oh my gosh, Avril, he was so lovely. Oh, he was awesome. You know what, we could have talked for hours because I mean there was so much content in River Cottage, right? We didn't have our stupid lives and stupid kids and stupid jobs. We just sit and chat but you know what, he's going to come back and chat to us and that is worth, that's gold to us. And on that note, Avril, until next time, slán le. Gerov maha goth brínidat.