Spring means new growth and new life – it also often means amazingly fresh food and a time to renew.
At the Kandanga Farm Store in the Mary Valley it means a seasonal long-table lunch celebrating their Spring harvest and for the more farm and garden minded a chance to regenerate the garden plot – big or small at their Season Starter event on the same day 8 November.
Kandanga Farm Store, situated in the Main Street of Kandanga, is the brainchild of Tim and Amber Scott and both events are dear to their hearts.
The long-table lunch features the skills of local food legend Matt Golinski and the produce of local famers (many of whom will join the lunch and be part of the Season Starter event earlier that day).
“One of the most memorable things about Matt’s lunches (apart from the food!) is the time he takes to explain the menu, the ingredients and the farmers that produced them,” Amber said.
“You can’t help but be inspired by Matt’s creativity and sensitivity with food and you” leave with an appreciation of just how much good food comes out of the Mary Valley and surrounding region. This is not lunch for the sake of it, this is lunch to connect you to the local landscape and the people who farm here.
“Served like a family meal on long tables this is an experience to enjoy real food and the magic that happens when good people come together to eat.
“You’ll be joining our Seasonal Starter Workshop participants, who are expanding their knowledge on growing food organically, with this meal culminating their autumn preparation workshop with us at the Farm Store. In fact, you’ll be eating ingredients planted and maintained by the workshop participants in previous sessions.”
The Season Starter event is something the store runs a couple of times a year aimed at helping farmers and gardeners.
“Regenerating your plot, big or small, while getting poison out of the food chain and building natural capital is all doable but requires a proactive approach to land management,” she said. “But what do you do and when do you do it? Our Season Starter Sessions are a “nuts & bolts” approach to becoming proactive and avoiding the common issues faced by many producers- poor soil, nutrition gaps (for humans and animals), parasite & pest burdens, land degradation, unhealthy water systems and an underperforming food production system.
“Reactive management limits your ability to get off the chemical train. It also leads to overwhelm and missed opportunities. Our role in the Season Starters is to help you get in the driver’s seat for your farm, garden or plot – season by season and year by year. Deal with the issues before they even become issues.”
The principals they teach are ones they live by The Kandanga Farm Store’s objective is to assist farmers and food producers grow nutrient dense, clean food. It’s also how they run their own farm and organic beef.
Kandanga Farm is a Certified Organic 200 acre working cattle property producing K2 beef in the stunning Mary Valley region of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland and is one of the many local farms supplying The Kandanga Farm Store with produce.B
“The Kandanga Farm Store is the only store in the whole country that specializes and only does organic and regenerative food production – we don’t sell any synthetics or poisons or anything like that,” she said.
“Because we don’t sell poisons we had to diversify our business we have a commercial kitchen and we run these events – it’s about linking consumers with food production and telling the story of our local farmers who we buy produce back from. We help them grow it, produce and then we buy it back and sell it through the store just to tell their story.”
She said they had run a full café at the store before Covid and it was something they hope to revisit in the future.
So how did the farm and store come about?
“I grew up in Brisbane,” Amber explained.
“But from a very very early age – probably due to health issues – I realised what I ate impacted me and was very interested and the quality of food. When I had just finished school I went to Tasmania and stayed on a biodynamic farm and that’s when I made the real connection on how it’s produced impacting the quality of it.
“That started my commitment and fascination with organic agriculture – then I married Tim who is a farmer, born and bred in Western Queensland. He came off an organic farm but out there they can be organic by default because they just don’t have the issues that we have in high rainfall subtropical kind of areas.
“So down here when we first game down here to the Mary Valley we were told it was absolutely impossible – you are never going to go organic with your animals because of parasites mainly. We believed that for a while -but it never sat right for me I just thought it was wrong to the point I wouldn’t eat our own meat. We were having babies and I didn’t want my kids anywhere near the cattle. One day I said to Tim if we can’t do this organically, let’s get out and buy our meat from someone who can.
“He’s a born and bred farmer and he was like – well no that’s not good. I want to be a farmer. He worked it out basically – it took a while but now we’re certified organic in the region and doing everything we can to promote it and make sure other people know that it isn’t impossible, you can do it.”
For more information about their events head to the Kandanga Farm Store website.
