Across the inaugural season of Nadia's Farm, we've joined former MasterChef New Zealand winner Nadia Lim and her husband, Carlos Bagrie take on the mammoth task of diversifying the historic Royaburn Station in the Crown Range, which they took over three years ago.
Throughout the Three series, proudly sponsored by My Food Bag, we've seen the couple plant five million sunflower seeds and 20 hectares of barley, build an onsite abattoir and complementary butchery, battle weather bombs and of course, the effects of a pandemic. But by and large it's all been worth the effort and it's all paid off — except, in one crucial area.
Building a 700m elevated organic market garden has been a personal project for Nadia and the team and it's come with its fair share of challenges . As we saw at the end of last week, its future is in jeopardy with Carlos wondering if it's time to say goodbye to the garden. The main issue is the time and labour involved — everything has to be done by hand, compared to the giant machinery and scale of farms' other more profitable revenue streams.
"My honest view of it is that we don't have much choice other than to change the model significantly" says Carlos. "We really have to do something different."
So Nadia suggests that perhaps it's time to try a different approach — applying that same principle of 'go hard or go home' to the garden and increase its scale by another three hectares.
Of course, there's someone else this decision impacts: horticulture manager Dave who took over the day-to-day management of the garden this season. Dave expresses his concerns about weed management — as well as the pressure from the critical eyes of the local farming community along the main highway — but he's onboard.
Once the rain clears it's time to prepare the land with farm worker Bernie on his wipper (and for non-farming folk, that's a long horizontal blade attached to a tractor). But while things get off to a good start, during the morning's work the wipper unearths a terrible discovery – couch weed that has been growing under the soil for at least a year. The scale of the outbreak is "beyond comprehension".
"It's devastating – that land is unusable right now," says Nadia.
The only way to kill the weed is with harsh sprays and herbicides which can't be used in the organic garden. So where to from here? Carlos is going to think on it – there's no instant solution
Across the farm things are cheerier when Michael Sly – the inventor of the farm's innovative hot compost – is visiting with an unusual 'gift' — a giant bag of sheep dags. For the uninitiated, that's sheep wool that gets soiled with poo and shorn off.
And Michael's plan? To distil them.
"Funnily enough in the perfume world, things that smell weird are worth more than things that smell nice," Michael explains.
So he and Nadia load the daggs into Michael's essential oil distiller, which distils substances using the power of steam. Michael thinks a perfume capturing the 'essence' of a farm could be something that starts a conversation and perhaps be used for charity purposes — watch this space.
A few days later and it's back to the organic veggie farm, where Dave and the team are planting some onion seedlings – with the new scaled-up mechanical approach. They use Dave's Japanese state-of-the-art hemp-chain pot-planting system (say that ten times fast), which sees seeds grown in individual shells before being spaced and planted using a machine.
The system plants about 200 seedlings in minutes — a much more efficient planting process than doing it by hand. While that's a success, the issue of the couch weed remains.
Come October and Nadia is running things solo while Carlos is overseas. This means it's all hands on deck down in the on-site abattoir, where Nadia gets a lesson on producing the perfect sausages from local charcuterie expert Tré.
While commercial sausies often contain fillers and artificial additives and preservatives, all the sausages produced at Royalburn are made using traditional methods. The mincer is loaded with cuts of lamb, which is then flavoured with spices and a red wine garlic paste that gives the meat beautiful colour and flavour.
The mince is cycled through a few times to get the perfect consistency before being fed into natural pork intestine casings. Then the sausages are linked and fed into the smoker out back— an old school locker that has been repurposed.
The abattoir is proving itself to be an increasingly useful revenue stream. Tré is also working on a batch of lamb bacon and some pork prosciutto experiments — basically all you need for your festive platters and meals this christmas.
Back in the paddocks and Nadia, Bernie and a local Irish handyman called 'Grimey' have come up with a brainwave – they're going to plant some potatoes in the 'unsable' paddocks, using an old-school potato planter.
The potatoes are fed into the machine by the men at the back as Nadia tows it on the tractor, spacing the spuds perfectly. As potatoes can grow all year around and there's a local interest it could be a gamechanger – they'll get 1.5 tonnes just from that afternoon’s efforts. But there's no small thinking with nadia.
"If it goes well we should double down, or quadruple down!" she enthuses.
One thing at a time.
The one person who wasn't consulted was Carlos and it made for an… interesting conversation on his return.
But it wasn't the only big chat this episode. Bank manager Tom stopped by to give an update on what's paying down the farm’s mortgage — and what's not, after a year's diversification efforts. Royalburn's farm shop is a win, supplying steady income that allows for day-to-day cash flow — while the livestock is also a top performer.
The elephant in the room is of course the market garden — but it's good news for Nadia.
Tom says the garden income has "improved quite a bit".
"These early signs are looking good [and] the market garden does help complete the package you're selling," he says.
It's early days, but it means they're on track to hit their goals and carry on with their diversification – the farm is moving in all the right directions.
"All that hard work is starting to pay off and it's looking great."
The couple even got their hi-fives from the bank manager – not something every farmer can say.
To celebrate the good news and the arrival of spring, Nadia and Carlos throw a staff party, to reward their team for all their hard work throughout the tough winter.
Nadia's heads into the market garden to grab some vegetables: some rainbow chard, parsnips, carrots, leeks, purple onions and other herbs to whip up a delicious spring minestrone – and rhubarb tart for dessert.
"The key to a good minestone is to have a nice variety of fresh vegetables – it's a nice light dish perfect for spring," she says.
The hardier root vegetables like onions, the leek, parsnip and carrot are sauteed, while some dried beans and peas collected from last season are boiled in preparation. Vegetable stock and a handful of orzo pasta all go into the pot with the beans and peas, before the lighter veg like asparagus and broccolini goes in last.
"If that doesn't make you feel healthy, I don't know what will," she says .
The party also is the perfect chance to introduce Michael's 'Eau de dagg’ perfume, which is being sold with 100 percent of profits going to the Rural Support Trust, which supports rural communities through tough times. You can find out more about that here: https://www.rural-support.org.nz/
And the start of spring heralds a new journey not just for the farm's animals but for Carlos and Nadia. Hawk-eyed viewers will have spotted in recent episodes that Nadia is pregnant with their third child.
"Come late summer, there should be another little pair of farm hands," she says.
So it's a time of new beginnings — but also reflection over a mammoth year for the pair.
"This season has been the hardest of my life in a lot of respects," says Carlos. "But in the same way it's been the most rewarding. When I look back at what we've built and achieved together with the team — I'm stoked that we did it."
"What's so heartwarming is it would be really easy to not be a believer — but everyone in our team is a believer," adds Nadia.
After keeping up with them all season, we are too. Congrats on a mammoth effort Nadia and Carlos! If you've been inspired by Nadia's efforts this season, head to My Food Bag to find more recipes and inspiration. This week on the menu there is a delicious Gourmet Beef Eye Fillet with Charred Baby Capsicums and Creamy Caper Potatoes – inspired by Nadia's Farm, amongst other mouth-watering recipe options.
This article was created for My Food Bag, proud sponsors of Nadia's Farm.
