Nirvana Biodynamics

Sales direct to the public from the Nirvana Farm Shop 184 Longwood Road HEATHFIELD South Australia. Open 10am- 5pm daily Once the cooler weather arrives the chestnut roasting season begins in the Stirling village.This year the season will kick off with the Stirling Autumn Garden Festival on April 29th 10am to 4pmon. After that you can experience the great taste of roasted chestnuts on  Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. the season lasts  until we have sold all our nuts- usually late June-early July. .

Australia being a young country made up of many cultures as an ever changing food traditions.Each region , even parts of regions have very different seasons and range of produce that grow and so develop their own recipes and way of using foods. Unfortunately if you pick up a magazine or heaven forbid see a TV cooking show you can almost grantee  the regional seasonal foods are missing or worse they are among a vast array of ingredients  (usually ingredients that are not in season at the same time)designed to kill off any fresh  subtle flavours. Early Summer here in the Adelaide Hills is usually about berries, as well the orchard produces a wonderful  perfume from the chestnut and linden flowers and waves of common brown butterflies and dragonflies fill the air.The vegies are just starting with an abundance of fresh greens, carrots, beans and the first of the Richmond green cucumbers. When people think of berries they usually think in terms of adding cream, ice-cream ...

We have had a very busy time of late with the chestnut harvest,shed relocation and farm tours. Fortunately we had some excellent help from woofers', Emanuele and Federica from Northern Italy who where keen to learn about our farming methods and sustainable lifestyle. While they were able to experience our lifestyle and farming methods first hand we learned about chestnut forests in Northern Italy and their traditional foods, celebrations and way of life. The polenta and kangaroo is a merging of the two cultures. They were keen to experience food from paddock to plate .Here they are preparing birds for the table a valuable experience as they wanted to provide quality food for themselves in the future. A few new building skills never go astray. Emanuele also put 26 years of rainfall records on the computer (something I planned to do one day but never got around to.) Now its easy to see patterns and trends in our rainfall patterns. The busy patter...

The chestnut harvest is underway. It started with 30+C days which was hard on the hands as the burrs were dry and easily penetrated the leather gloves. But now the Autumn rains have arrived the burrs open easily. The quality this year is excellent. They seem to benefit from the doubling of the irrigation to try and counter the drought and lack of subsoil moisture. Each morning we harvest, then grade the nuts. Now that the rains have come this is an especially good experience, the smell of damp soil and the explosion of fungus popping up everywhere. It would be much better if they where the edible types. Once the chestnuts are picked and graded they are stored in the cold room. The coldroom maturation starts the process of the starches converting to sugars. Fresh chestnuts are sold direct to the public from our farm shop. The shop is opened daily.We can pick and complete other chores because we have a radio controlled pager to inform us that you need serving. Once the cooler we...

It’s been a hectic spring with goslings and chickens hatching, a new dog to train and lots of lovely rain. Although the rain has slowed down the orchard work there is plenty to do. The horns have been retrieved yielding excellent quality biodynamic 500. The spri n g wo rkshops h a ve had a wonderful cross section of people participating and I’ve sc heduled a second biodynamic wo rkshop this weekend for those who missed out in Septembe r. We have had a rush of schools ordering fertile eggs to incubate and now primary schools are learning about food from paddo ck to plate , several tours have been booked by schools throughout November. December and the beginning of the berry harvest is not far away. There are many more things to do before then but now it’s important to enjoy and savour the season of SPRING- the green of our valley, the activity of the wildlife, the vibrant colours a nd perfumes of the flowers and the fast growth of the goslings and chickens.

For most of Adelaide Sprin g is deemed to start on the 1 st of Septe mber but here in the cool Adelaide Hills it does not really arrive till around the equinox. It is very noticeable from the winter solstice that the days are lengthening, the buds start swelling, chooks start their laying season after the moult, the geese and wild birds start nesting. All sig ns that Spring is approaching but not yet here. The soil is cold and the sound of ‘ squish’ comes to mind as the valley struggles to take i n anymore water. The plants are smiling as they know there will be enough moisture to get them comfortably through the coming Summer. Such waterlogging could be a problem but the berries are all planted on raised beds. The weeding needs to be delayed to the end of September e arly October so as not to damage the soil. With the tragic los s of li tt le He be back in May we have finally found a replac ement fox deterrent/poultry guard. .Late August saw the arriv al of our new ‘f...

The last couple of weeks have seen nice steady rain, the valley has taken on its usu al waterlogged squish squash which means the water is slowly being absorbed by the subsoil. Our first order creek which joins up with others to become S cott Creek is flowing again and the filter ponds are slowing down the flow and the flow forms are doing their job of aerating and energizing the water before it leaves Nirvana Farm on its way to Clarendon Weir. (It is then pumped back to the Heathfield water tanks to supply this area… but that’s another story!) Here are the flow forms in action in our creek. There is an abundance of wildlife around at present, maybe a sign of early spring! The kangaroos are enjoying the damp grass, while the bird’s colours seem to be brighter as they b usily move around the bare trees. This cute ringtail possum has been around the garden for the past few weeks and managed to sneak into the kitchen when the door was left open. The passing of the Winter...

The Winter garden can be quite a challenge here in the Adelaide Hills. The best results are achieved by good planning and this means back in January /February. All those seeds you planted are now providing delicious winter dishes. Here planting continues throughout the year , although the cool restricts the range and growth is slow.Favorites at this time are greens like green wave, a mustard green, miners lettuce, mache , The colours of the chicory are great (as well tasting great) and the purple cauliflowers attracted attention during recent farm tours. Winter also provides time to clean and sort the seeds produced in Autumn. Click here to see more photos of the winter garden.

Tonight I sat on the veranda and celebrated the completion of putting out the autumn bio dynamic preparations. After a long hot and dry summer it was wonderful that autumn arrived and delivered some much needed rain, although the springs have not started running or the creek flowing yet it’s a good start. If the ants are any indication the serious rains are on the way as they have built up their nests at least 4inches. While walking through the orchard th e other morning I noticed the most amazing aroma, an aroma I had never experienced before, an arom a that eclipsed that of rain on dust! Up to that moment my most favourite smell. But the earthy, damp, sweet, like humus rich compost aroma filled the air.It felt like the soil had become light and moved into the air. I thought may be being morning it was rising from the earth and the dew had contributed to the aroma and feel so I retur ned latter in the morning then early afternoon and again at sunset it was the sa...

As part of our bushfire action plan we stay at home on all total fire ban days. At least one of us has to be here but both are preferable. Sometimes Quentin has to venture out to service a fire pump as people often panic at these times –often they have not tested their fire pump for years! Also as part of our plan is to stay tuned to the radio – of which I often find tedious. For example yesterday they just talked up the heat more heat and power outages continuously. Yesterday the worst advice would have to do with pets and animals, so many people give them human qualities and think they are doing them good but often this advice is misguided. Its extremely important for them to have shade ,shelter and plenty of fresh cool water but not ice water and frozen food!. Even for us these things are not good. The best thirst quencher is cool water not cold! Domestic animals are accustom to eating food from the fridge but frozen meat is not good for digestion & would do no good in cooling ...

Spring is the time that we are surrounded with new life and rampant growth. The berries in our little valley take a while to dry out enough to enable them to be weeded. Now that is mostly done, all the biodynamic preparations have been applied its time to turn our attention to mowing. While the geese and goslings have been doing their bit grazing the orchards , they can’t quite keep up with the spring flush . Mowing is very important in the orchard as the living mulch is cut to produce a protective layer of mulch ,over the season it will be cut around 3 times producing valuable organic matter some of which act as mulch and the rest is consumed by the soil micro organisms , especially after being sprayed with biodynamic cow-pat-pit after mowing. This living mulch becomes even more important as although the winter rainfall was average, the normal spring rains have not come and Spring has all too quickly turned to Summer. This year all the berries have been mulched with sawdust. The last ...

These guys appear I have noticed that the flowering bushes and trees are especially vibrant and abundant this year. Have you ever noticed that in some years the different qualities of the plant world seem to be accentuated? Like a year of blossoms, a year of leaves, good cabbages, a year of fruit, when pumpkins and cucumbers grow to profusion. Or a good root year when the parsnips and carrots grow to perfection. Do these phenomena follow a rhythm? Is it the rhythm of the sun from year to year that influence the plants? What do you think?

Winter is time to harvst many types of citrus like navel oranges, grapefruit, imperial mandarins, tangellos and my favorite limes. The Tahitian limes are just delicious at this time of the year. They have such a vast range of uses savory, sweet, soothing winter drinks, lime liqueur (like limoncello but better) prepared now for summer evenings on the veranda. At this time of the year one of my favorites is lime pudding, its light and refreshing and can be served hot or cold. Lime Pudding 3 eggs, separated Finely grated rind and juice of 4 or 6 limes depending on size. 225g caster sugar 1 tablespoon butter 4 Tbsp flour 300 ml milk Pinch of salt Beat egg yolks and lime rind together until light. Gradually add sugar and lime juice beating until fluffy. Add melted butter. Gently stir in sifted flour and milk. Beat egg whites with salt until they form stiff peaks. Using a large metal spoon, lightly fold lemon mixture into the beaten egg whites. Pour mixture into a buttered baking dish and ba...

June is the time for clearing up, pruning and preparing for the winter rains. One important job that requires doing before winter sets in, is to make the biodynamic preparations. So last weekend with a perfect autumn day a few of us from the Adelaide Hills Biodynamic group set about filling the horns with fresh manure from Paris Creek BD farm, preparing the compost preparations of yarrow, chamomile, oak and dandelion. The horns where buried in their usual pit of rich soil and the horn silica (501) was retrieved after spending summer in the earth. The compost preparations in their clay pots are buried in the humus rich soil of the vegie garden. The oak is down in the wet valley. Another job is to brush cut the banks after which they had an application of cow pat pit followed by horn manure (500). I then planted some mixed legumes and wheat seeds and within 24 hours the geese where systematically grazing the banks. But really it’s a win, win situation as they don’t often graze these ste...

The seasons are changing; summer is slowly making way for autumn. In the air there are still clouds of common brown butterflies & dragon flies, the flame robins look fat & happy and the eastern spinebills are keeping me on my toes as they mimic our customer beeper. My boots repel the heavy dew that glistens in the morning sunlight; the leaves rustle as I walk through the orchard. Picking chestnuts means eyes to the ground , as well as chestnuts & their burrs around my feet I see new ant hills, spider holes, worm castings, freshly germinated clover and a multitude of fungi. My mind drifts off wondering about these interesting fruiting bodies that started off as a spore. When the spore germinates it produces tiny threads called hyphae. When mattered together, these hyphae form mycelium before they appear above ground as fungi. There are many types here but wouldn’t it be nice if some where edible, may be a truffle or morel or chanterelle even a field mushroom (actually there ...