Spring Farm Tour Experience Tuesday 5 December
- Duration: 3 Hours (approx.)
- Location: Robertson, NSW
- Product code: Farm Tour
In 2006, with its 140 acres of rich red basalt soil, Phil Lavers and Lisa Kawai set about creating a farm to produce the best produce possible and that meant it would be organic and follow sustainable ethical practices.
Despite some trials and failures Moonacres is now thriving. The Farm supplies some of Sydney’s and regional NSW’s best restaurants including Icebergs, Lankan Filling Station, Fred's, Fontana and Firedoor, sells at several markets in the Southern Highlands, and of course provides farm fresh food to its own cafés, Moonacres Kitchen and Hearth by Moonacres as well as our school in Robertson.
Phil runs Moonacres as a working example of the future of farming and is a fierce advocate for the protection of the land. “Our soil is disappearing. It’s poisoned, trampled, filled with salt, drained of nutrients and it's like a balloon stretched to its thinnest – and that thin layer sustains everything. When it all blows away, what are we going to eat?” Whenever you eat Moonacres produce, you can be confident that everything in the chain has been looked after. However, we humbly accept that farming is by its very nature hard: that weather, weeds and pests, machines and even the best laid plans, will sometimes turn sour and crops will fail. We accept this as part of our job because we are committed to working with nature, not against it, and to thereby enrich, not rob our environment, our collective future.
At the heart of Moonacres’ vision is our sustainable farming of quality produce. Moonacres is a certified vegetable farm using regenerative practices that grows healthy nutrient dense food whilst nurturing the land & soil.
Some of the topics Phil will talk with you about will include Moonacres farming layout and crop rotation, growing with the seasons - what does this look like and what do you need to know? Sweet brassicas in winter, Tomatoes/Peppers in summer. Nurturing the soil with cover cropping, bed preparation, fertility, harvest techniques, delivery, crop selections in climate zone, growing high value crops in greenhouses and farming on tractor scale vs market garden scale
Everyone will taste produce fresh from the paddock.
This tour begins at Moonacres School and we bus participants to Moonacres Farm in Wildes Meadow.
Please be at Moonacres School by 9.15am. The bus leaves at 9.30am for the Farm.
We will be back at the school by 11:30am for a morning tea made in the Moonacres school kitchen.
Phil, James and the team at Moonacres look forward to seeing you soon and we are proud to share the farm, our knowledge, passion, innovation & love of good healthy food.