FROM ORGANICS Certified organic cultivation with Wayne and Tash Shields

FROM ORGANICS

Certified organic cultivation with Wayne and Tash Shields

Sometimes good things grow out of catastrophe. Life takes a turn and you either roll with the punches or give up trying. Wayne Shields knows more about this than your average farmer. After losing a whole season’s worth of pumpkins and seedless watermelons in the early 2ooos, which left him disillusioned and not knowing which way to go, he pulled up his socks and headed to Queensland, where the sugar cane and watermelons grow.

Tash Shields explains: “Wayne has been market gardening all of his life. His parents Sue and Rod Shields moved to Baxter in 1972, but Wayne, who is the oldest of their three children and the only one to stay in agriculture, wanted to go out on his own. He left the family farm when he was 18 to work on other local farms and was given the opportunity to manage a farm in his early 20s on the Murray River. He then moved his operation to Hillston, NSW, to grow watermelon and butternut pumpkin. That’s when the spray contamination occurred. He was using a conventional synthetic herbicide and the crops were deformed with hormonal damage from contaminated herbicide. There was something about the mix of ingredients in the chemical. Just over 100ha of cropping was destroyed. That’s when he headed to Queensland.”

Farming folk know working on the land has its tests. Weather. Water. Pests. At its best it can be challenging. After taking some time in Queensland, Wayne returned to Ballarat to work on an organic farm growing cabbage, kale and leek and that’s when he realised how much better tasting organic produce was. Tash continues: “When Wayne returned home to his parents’ farm in 2008 after working in NSW and realised that they hadn’t been using chemicals for a while, he decided to continue to grow everything organically. We applied for certification in 2009, and it took three years to become fully certified organic. Peninsula Fresh Organics started growing on 1.2ha in 2009 and have grown it to 16.1ha of land in Baxter (with) approximately 40 different lines of vegetables, including heirloom varieties such as carrots, spinach, rainbow chard, broccoli, leeks and radish just to name a few. We also farm 40ha at Barham on the Murray River. This helps when we have problems with the weather on the Mornington Peninsula. Sometimes, if it’s too hot or cold or wet, you end up putting all the crops back into the ground to be used as compost. The yield is certainly slower with organic growing, but we think the quality is so much better. Synthetic fertilisers may make your carrots grow faster – conventional ones grow in eight weeks – but they won’t taste as good. There’s nothing like the taste of an organic carrot.” Becoming certified by ACO (Australian Certified Organic) takes time. First there’s the initial paperwork, farm inspections, soil samples being taken, and produce being tested for chemical residue. Then you have the annual audits as well as blind audits and testing. The list goes on, but Tash says the result has been worth it. She continues:

“There was so much paperwork to wade through, but our farm has ‘come alive’ since becoming organic. The only problem is that everyone likes us. No one seems to visit the conventional farms around here.” By “everyone” she means ducks, aphids and other bugeating vegetable-munchers. “You know that 50 to 100 ducks can eat up to 2ha of lettuce overnight in summer? Good organic practices have pests like aphids and grubs under control. It is amazing how many frogs, bees and turtles live on the farm now, which is great. The kids love it. We have four children between us. Ted, Wayne’s oldest son who is 17, works on the farm with us. All our farmgate produce is planted seasonally. Our leeks are in the ground for up to nine months, and if we get bad weather they may end up staying in the ground being used as compost. We are continually composting. Everything goes back into the earth. We usually do all our weeding by hand too. We opened up our farmgate in 2012 on the Baxter farm, enabling us to provide our freshly harvested certified organic produce to the locals.”

From cultivating the land to creating the finest seasonal produce, Mornington Peninsula farmers are proud to offer their harvest to you. Take some time to explore what’s in store across this diverse and prolific growing region. LIZ ROGERS