August 2023

Another Very exciting competition win for Kooinda Farm!

Hot on the tail of winnning best herbs at Macksville Agricultural show we have won a Bronze medal in the Sydney Royal Fine Foods Show! From great ingredients great products come!

Press Release below:

Local tea medal winner at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show

Eungai Creek’s Kooinda Farm has been announced as a medal winner at the 2023 Sydney Royal Fine Food Show, a national competition discovering Australia’s best fine food producers.

Kooinda Farm won a Bronze Medal for its product Artisan Herbal Tea “Wholesome Blend” with their first ever entry in the competition, establishing them as a leader in the fine food industry. 

Mr John Bennett OAM, Chair, Sydney Royal Fine Food Show said all winners were selected by a judging panel of industry specialists, who aim to select the best in Australia while nurturing

the growth of producers nationally.

‘‘Sydney Royal is committed to fostering a competitive space that assesses, promotes and

rewards Australian produce across a large number of categories, and this year’s show

was no exception,’’ Mr Bennett said.

‘‘We’ve seen companies benefit considerably from winning a Sydney Royal medal, which

provides multiple marketing opportunities to leverage success both locally and

internationally. I encourage all Australians to look out for Sydney Royal medals and support

these great Australian producers and their fantastic products”.

Kooinda Farm’s Linda Craig says she was thrilled to receive such great feedback on her herbal teas and that the dedication to regenerative farming has definitely been worth it. 

‘‘Our focus has always been about producing a sustainable, and consistently high quality product for our customers from start to finish grown and produced in Australia. Being recognised at this level amongst some of the finest producers in Australia means so much to us,” Ms Craig said. 

“As a relatively small boutique family owned farm this award will help us get the word out there about the benefits of chemical free farming, growing our own ingredients, and buying as local as you possibly can”.  

Sydney Royal hosts an extensive array of competitions each year, shining a light on Australia’s

greatest and most deserving producers. Hosted by the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW, the competition aims to promote excellence in Agriculture amongst all industry stakeholders

April 2023: My herbs won first prize at the local Macksville Agricultural Show!! Very happy with that 🙂 My lemons also came in second, so you know you are buying the best!!

Its mid March already!

Its been very wet – the total rainfall to date since Jan 1st is over 900mm!! The farm is just ankle deep in mud in all the places you need to get to – ie the goat pen, and the chook house! The Poor goats hate getting wet, and refuse point blank to get their feet wet or muddy, so they have been shed bound for weeks now- they just manage to poke their heads around the door to shout for more food! We have added a pallet-deck to their hut and sheets of tin by the gate. George will venture out off it, but Timtam just shouts from the end of the deck instead of the doorway now.

The banana tree fell down with the weight of the bananas combined with very wet soil, so they are now ripening in the shed. I’m not sure if they are big enough to be edible but we will see! The macadamia trees are loving the rain and have nearly doubled in size. It has been too wet to mow, so the grass is 2m high around them. Consequently its also very hard to hunt down a pumpkin, but I know they are there somewhere!

The ducks and geese have been very happy with constant rainy days of course, but the poor chickens look very bedraggled – they are also going through the moult season, which doesn’t help the look! The ducks have made a lovely mud moat around the house, which of course the dogs just love to trudge through on their way in and out. We had to take delivery of a truck load of gravel last week, just so we could get out without sinking ankle deep in mud every time!

We have some Fejoas for the first time. I need to do some research to find out when they are ready to pick. I missed the persimmon as the birds got to them first, but I did get a few pomegranate! They are amazing this year! I will add photos asap. I have also had a major harvest of the Rosella bushes so the Rosella Teas are now back in stock. Catch up again soon!

February on Kooinda Farm

After a few weeks away I came back to find the herb garden had turned into a jungle!! We had 200mm of rain since Christmas and the grass was taller than the herb beds. So began a week of applying the shears! The fig tree was ready to start harvesting a whole month earlier than last year. And for the first time ever we had actual bananas growing on the banana trees!

The naughty goats, Timtam and George, had allegedly had a few escapes while I was away. They had made a beeline for the roses again! Luckily I had planted more roses in another garden just in case. They get very bored when it rains a lot as they hate getting wet, so stay snug inside their manger, which yes, gets very boring!

The mint had taken over in the herb garden and suffocated the sage plants. It also limited the growth of one of my Rosella bushes, so I had to pull lots out to make some space. But it all went straight in the dehydrator so nothing gets wasted! It had also started flowering so lots of the mint flowers went into the dehydrator too :). I love drying the flowers as they taste exactly the same as the leaves and add a beautiful bit of colour into the herb teas! Most of the rosella had grown well and were already flowering, with even a few calyx already ripe for picking. The turmeric and ginger had also gone crazy, but they won’t be ready for harvesting until the winter.

The Elderberry bushes had lots of berries nearly ready for picking, which is a great bonus from not being around to harvest the flowers! So I will be making lots of elderberry syrup over the next few weeks, along with my favorite Fig Jam 🙂

For those of you waiting eagerly for the Rosella Teas to come back in stock, the Rosella calyx are ripening nicely! These wonderful crimson leaves surround the seed pod after the flower has finished. It took me a moment to spot the flower buds from the calyx! – here you can see the different stages: