Millie explores a farm with a focus on seeds and their potential to provide both beauty and food security. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
On the southern tip of Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula is a 3-ha block where Robin Koster-Carlyon and Peter Carlyon decided to set up small-scale farm. They originally ran it as a market garden growing vegetables, and Robin committed herself to learning everything she could about soil management, but she soon realised that it was all worthless without good seed.
The farm now focuses on producing high-quality seed of vegetables, flowers and herbs that are grown to suit local conditions.
Robyn’s passion is growing seed while Peter’s is growing soil – his main method is planting a green manure crop that is later cut down and returned to the soil, adding nutrients and organic material to feed the soil and its resident microbes. It’s the main way they feed their sandy soil; no manure or other fertilizers are brought in.
Different plant varieties have to be spaced out or covered with isolation tunnels so that they don’t cross-pollinate with related species. This not only ensures the seed will grow into the plant that is named on the packet, but also the best form of the plant can be grown.
Banks of native vegetation also helps isolate different crops.
Robin is uncompromising in her pursuit of the perfect flower. With zinnias, for example, she will remove any plants that produce flowers that have reverted to an unwanted form while under stress, and then she re-sows the whole crop using seed from the remaining ‘good’ plants to slowly breed out any weaker genes.
Collecting and sorting seed is a slow, laborious process, often done by hand, although a new winnowing machine has helped, and results in a higher-quality seed with better germination rates.
“The potential for one little seed – that food security feels like a good contribution,” says Robin.
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