Three series Nadia's Farm, proudly sponsored by My Food Bag, has been documenting the journey of former MasterChef NZ winner Nadia Lim and her husband, Carlos Bagrie, after they took on the challenge of diversifying the 1200-acre Royalburn Station three years ago.
Among the new projects we've seen this season, the couple have started a 700m-elevated organic market garden, produced pasture-raised, free-range eggs, lamb, charcuterie and wool products, sunflower oil from their sunflowers, and even an award-winning beer using barley grown on their farm, as well as maintaining some of the station's traditions.
But this week's episode kicks off with Carlos and Nadia seeing just how much impact they've had on the property — from new heights. After a year that dealt more than its fair share of challenges, Scotty the helicopter pilot is landing on the farm for a very special job: to take Carlos and Nadia on a trip from Royalburn across to Motatapu station to get a lay of the land.
Nadia and Carlos take stock of their sheep, crops and, of course, Nadia's beloved market garden — which she proudly thinks is looking "quite professional" from the air.
As we saw in an earlier episode, Carlos and farm manager Michelle have taken over the grazing at the mammoth neighbouring Motatapu station, after realising they were outgrowing Royalburn. From the skies it becomes clear that these days the meat Royalburn is producing gives new meaning to the term 'free-range'.
"It's like one sheep per square kilometre," Carlos jokes.
As they land on the farm's highest outcrop with spectacular views of Lake Hayes, Lake Wakatipu and Lake Wanaka, it's a reminder that even through the slog and tough seasons, Royalburn is a breathtakingly beautiful spot.
But they have no time to catch their breath — Nadia's already onto her next mission.
"Next step, crossing it by horseback" she tells her husband, who is concerned "you'd have a pretty sore bum at the end of that".
Once they're back down to earth, it's time for Carlos and Nadia to check up on how spring is affecting the farm's projects. Nadia checks in how the market garden is going in the hands of Dave, who took over managing the market garden this season. Things are off to a flyer with a bumper crop of greens and a flourishing organic garlic crop — one of the previous year's failures and a real lesson in restraint for the team.
"While this year we're doing a lot less, this time it's going to be good quality — it's looking really good," says Nadia.
Also on the up is their sheep operation, thanks to their new grazing home at Motatapu. This week Royalburn's general manager Michelle and the farm's 'chicken wrangler' Jodie are making a special trip to the neighbouring farm. Using Michelle's very technical mathematical formula to estimate how much scrub a sheep would feed on during one week, the pair can calculate how big of an area they need and erect the new solar-powered electric fencing accordingly.
Then it's time for Jodie to take on a new role as sheep wrangler when it comes time for the pair to muster a flock of sheep to their new home. Even with some wayward sheep taking a swim across the river, and a crop of poisonous weeds on the sheep's route, thanks to Mike the sheep dog, the flock moves briskly to their new home and arrives ahead of schedule.
After saying the looming low feed situation had her "losing sleep" a few episodes ago, seeing the sheep safe and happy in their new home means Michelle will "sleep better tonight". Phew.
Of course, sheep aren't the only livestock on the farm. We also get to meet Royalburn’s dozen cattle whose manure, along with Carlos’ straw from his crops, creates nutrient-rich compost for the market garden, and get an update on Jodhi's three and a half thousand or so chickens.
Back in her role as chicken wrangler, Jodie explains that this year, egg supply and demand has been a big problem for Royalburn — with the tough winter and drastic reduction in daylight hours playing a huge part. However after their learnings, the chickens are getting luxe new housing with insulation and indoor feeders, to stop the weather having such an impact on their laying.
Happily — maybe a bit too happily — Spring's increasing daylight hours and warmth means the chickens are suddenly laying again in a big way: they're suddenly up 2,000 extra eggs in just a week. But hey, that's farm sales manager Oli's problem.
It's not just the chickens laying eggs this week. In great news for honey lovers, Royalburn's bee population is thriving, and beekeeper Tess explains the queen needs lots of new space to lay her eggs and keep the hives pumping. Getting into the hives for the first time since winter, Tess splits them to increase the population, making sure the queen has enough room in each one to get laying. Each egg contributes to the population of worker bees and drone bees in the hive — and the healthier and bigger the population is, the more honey Royalburn can produce.
With all the farm's inhabitants supplying, in Nadia's words "a sheesh-load of eggs" this season, Nadia decides to celebrate World Egg Day with an egg-themed cooking competition for staff and friends. Dishes were judged on taste, presentation and how eggs were used as a hero in the dish. It's fair to say the Royalburn team pulled out all the stops — there were club sandwiches, devilled eggs, tarts and even a Kim Kardashian egg lookalike.
But it was sales manager Oli's soy-cured eggs on lamb bacon sourdough with wasabi and sesame butter and brassica flowers that took out the top spot — scoring him a restaurant voucher for one of the area's eateries (and giving us this weekend's brunch inspiration).
With spring also comes a frantic period for Royaburn, so Nadia decided to whip up some beef and ale Cornish pastries for the tractor drivers, including farm hand Bernie, who've literally been working around the clock preparing the paddocks and sowing crops for the last couple of weeks.
"It's good tucker when you're really busy and you don't have time to have a break because you can keep them in your pocket," she explains.
Nadia harvests fresh leeks and carrots from the market garden and uses rump steak from the beef they've culled on their farm — but those watching at home can use any cut suited to slow cooking. The meat and vegetables are cut into bite-sized chunks and the meat is browned off, before Nadia deglazes the pan with some of Royalburn's own beer to make a base for a rich gravy. Then the vegetables, beef, stock and beer all go into the pot, which is then cooked in the oven before being completely cooled off.
Nadia then fills pastry rounds with filling, folds them and crimps the edges before it all goes back into the oven for half an hour.
Accompanied by Winston the family dog, the pastries are delivered to the hungry workers - and very well received. If you're keen to make this delicious and hearty meal yourself, you can with My Food Bag! On the menu this week is Nadia's Cheat's Beef & Ale Pie with Spring Garden Salad. Recreate this delicious pie you saw Nadia make, with the ease of My Food Bag getting everything you need delivered to your door.
But while the market garden is providing for the farm's inhabitants, questions are being raised over whether it's the right call overall. This week's episode ends with Carlos and Nadia having a tough conversation about the garden's future.
While demand is high, the laborious nature of work means that they've made a loss — and Calos believes "this isn't working".
The episode ends with Nadia's beloved market garden in jeopardy — will it survive Carlos' cull? Tune in to next week's Nadia's Farm finale to find out.
Check out more tasty Nadia inspired recipes at myfoodbag.co.nz/nadias-farm.
This article was created for My Food Bag, proud sponsors of Nadia's Farm.
