“We honour interconnected relationships with our communities, this land and each other through supporting HOFC members to grow nutritious food.“

HOFC is a collaboration of diverse organic farmers who lease land on a single farm in Harcourt. We are passionate about learning our craft, feeding our community, and making direct and meaningful connections with our customers, for example through Community Supported Agriculture.

Current members are:

• The Orchard Keepers— The Orchard Keepers are a collective of friends; Yoann, Ingrid, Rachael, Bri, Meg and Alex who took over from Ant, who previously leased the orchard as Tellurian Fruit Gardens. We manage an organic fruit orchard growing cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, apples and pears. Selling through CSA shares, farmers’ markets, pick your own, farm shop, and custom orders.

• Gung Hoe Growers—Mel Willard heads up Gung Hoe Growers alongside a dedicated crew of passionate and skillful crew (Quince, Will, Clauds & Pip), they grow real, dirty, food; build soil, belly laughs and veggie porn. They feed their local community through 12 monthly and seasonal CSA veggie boxes,  servicing select restaurants, cafes and caterers, local green grocers and the Wednesday weekly Farmers Markets in Castlemaine.  Always open for volunteers and groups wanting education on the gritty side!

• Sellar Farmhouse Creamery —Tessa Sellar runs a micro-dairy with the help of her partner Oli, milking 10 cows using sustainable farming principles, processed on-site into fresh milk and yoghurt in return glass packaging. Sold locally through CSA subscriptions and Castlemaine weekly farmers markets.

• Carr’s Organic Fruit Tree Nursery—Under the mentorship of Merv Carr, who has been grafting and budding heritage fruit trees for over 50 years, Katie Finlay and her sister Liz Carr are continuing the family tradition. Carr’s Organic Fruit Tree Nursery grows a huge variety of quality heritage fruit trees for sale in winter as barerooted trees.

The aim of HOFC is to make the farm as productive and profitable as possible, within a collaborative framework and using regenerative and organic principles. We’re always on the lookout for new members! If you want to know more, get in touch here.

We reckon this new way of farming will be good for ageing farmers like Katie and Hugh who want to step back from active farming but don’t want to sell the family farm, for emerging farmers who want to get started but can’t afford land, and customers who are yearning for a connection to the farmers who produce their food. In time we plan to share our model (but first we have to figure out if it works!).