Episode 41: Rachel Ward // Regenerative Farming, Small Farms, Nature and Creativity, Farmthru

~ This season of Avant Gardeners is proudly supported by Blundstone's new series WorkLife. Launching in November and perfect for gardening. Find your local stockist here. ~

Rachel Ward’s career began on screen, with standout roles in classics like The Thorn Birds before she turned her skills to directing acclaimed works including Beautiful Kate. In her sixties, Rachel's energy and focus shifted to regenerative agriculture, swapping film sets for fence lines and embarking on an ambitious overhaul of the beef farm her and her husband Bryan Brown had owned for thirty-odd years. Her brilliant documentary Rachel’s Farm captures this shift as Rachel moves into her soil-health evangelist era, charting her mission to restore land and the food system. Today, she continues that momentum through Farmthru, her paddock-to-plate project designed to disrupt how regenerative farm produce is made available to consumers. 

Rachel lives, works and tends to her cattle on the land of the Gumbaynggirr people in the Nambucca Valley, New South Wales.

Before we get to Rachel's chat, Maddie and Emily are drinking Greek Frappe (metrio me gala) even though it's 9 degrees outside. Recipe from Philoxenia: A Seat At My Table by Kon Karapanagiotidis.

Emily is dreaming of abundance in the garden.

Maddie is going to try to make her own tomato powder by Lauren at Oaklea Veggie Patch.

They both visited good mate Pip Steele Wareham at The Garden at Moorfield and it was just like old times in that Pip was followed around by Maddie and Emily asking lots of annoying questions.

We visited CERES Brunswick and want to start our own version in Cygnet.

We're growing strawberries in pots and trying to get lots more creeping thyme in the garden (thank you, Connie Cao)

Maddie is thinning her fruit trees (thank you, Katie Finlay)

Rachel recommends:
We Are The Ark by Mary Reynolds,
The Creative Act by Rick Reuben,
The Call of the Reed Warbler by Charles Massy,
Deep Listening to Nature by Andrew Skeock
Healthy Land, Happily Families and Profitable Businesses by David W Pratt
The Soil Will Save Us by Kristen Ohlson,
Holistic Management by Allan Savory

Check our Rachel's new online-ordering, kerb pick up regenerative farm produce available at Farmthru.