We’ve planted over a hundred olive trees, but so far only 10% of them are mature enough to fruit well. The Dandenong Ranges is not a prime olive growing location, too wet, they grow better in northern Victoria where the summers are hotter and drier, but we persist because olive trees have character. Their evergreen foliage appears different in the wet and the dry. When the wind is firm, the silver underside of the leaves is exposed giving the trees another look entirely. Olive groves are a deep signifier of the regions in Italy we’ve grown to love – Tuscany, Puglia, Sardinia – and for us they will always evoke nostalgia for our time spent there.

The thing is, it’s not that easy to get your olives processed into oil if you’re not a commercial producer with your own processing facilities. Ceres in Brunswick does run a community olives-to-oil service, but that’s more for folks with one or two trees. We’re somewhere in the middle, so we need to look further afield. Apulia Grove in Tooleen provide a small-batch olive processing service. Ceilidh and Charlie run a professional outfit with easy online bookings and friendly service, but it does take us 2.5 hours to drive there and once we stay overnight in Heathcote, it’s not exactly the most economical enterprise.

So, why do we do it?

After getting stuck in traffic in the outer eastern suburbs on our way home, we were left wondering. Harvesting the olives is quite fun once you get into it. We have these hand rakes that pull the olives off the trees without stripping the leaves, then we collect them on a tarp placed under the tree and tip the fruit into crates. For quality oil, olives can only be harvested 48 hours in advance, the fresher the better, so there’s time pressure too. This year we harvested about 60kg from our trees and friends of ours pitched in with around 30kg and, after all that time and effort, we got 10 litres of oil between us. And when you can buy great olive oil from Mount Zero and have it delivered to your door, I did begin to wonder if it was worth it.

After dropping our olives off at Apulia Grove, we drove into Heathcote and while we waited for the car to charge, we stopped in at the Heathcote Wine Hub. By this time, it was dark and we knew the wine bar was closing in half an hour, so we were expecting to be admitted begrudgingly and hurried along. To our delight we were greeted warmly by the hosts and made comfortable in the gorgeous, converted church with a glass of local shiraz and a cheese platter. It made our evening. And when we got home and tasted our own oil, we were reminded why we committed to this agrarian lifestyle.

Something special

True olio nuovo, new oil, is something very special. It’s essentially a different product from what you buy in the shops. Even if the oil you buy is marketed as ‘new oil’ it’s still weeks old by the time it gets to you. There’s a reason why, when you drive around Tuscany in the autumn, you see handwritten signs on the roadside advertising olio nuovo. The season is so short and the product is in such high demand locally that a formal marketing campaign is not required. Olio nuovo is bright green not gold. It’s spicy and fresh and peppery. It’s something to be proud of.

For us, the bonus comes when we take that ultra-fresh oil and add it to the vegetables we grow. Sprouting broccoli has just come back into season and honestly, I can feel the deep-green leafiness doing me good as I eat it. You never cook with olio nuovo, it’s for dressing. We keep it simple and boil or steam the broccoli until the stems are tender then douse it on the plate with our fresh olive oil. The warmth of the broccoli enhances the spicy, green aroma of the oil. We always make sure we have some crusty bread on hand for soaking up the leftovers. It’s not the kind of thing you waste.

We’ve only made our own olive oil once before. That year, we tried to hold onto it for as long as possible. To savour it, I suppose. But, actually, olio nuovo is best enjoyed within the first few weeks after harvesting, so this year we’re not holding back. We appreciate the goodness all the more knowing it won’t last, which, after all, is what eating seasonally is all about. One day, when all our trees are fruiting, we’d like to share this special oil with you. We love the idea of hosting an olio nuovo party. Celebrating with a wander through the olive grove then a tasting of this fleeting, magical product.

Until next time … eat well!

Words by Lisa Davis

These days you can buy a taglia puntarelle, a special puntarelle cutter and any bits that don’t push through easily can be julienned with a knife. We enjoy it served the Roman way with a punchy dressing of anchovies and lemon. Costante Imports have created a great video on how to make Puntarelle alla Romana with a recipe by Julia Busuttil Nishimura. Puntarelle is not widely available in Australia, so when ours are ready we get calls from all over requesting supply; often Italians eager for a nostalgic taste of home. If you’re a meat eater, a puntarelle salad goes well alongside crumbed pork or roasted lamb as the lemony zing of the dressing cuts through the richness of the meat and the cold crunchiness is refreshing. This week you’ll find puntarelle at Toscano’s as well as in our veg boxes. In our opinion, it’s the quickest way to be transported back to Rome.

Meet farmer Oliver

Ramarro Farm could not run without the efforts and enthusiasm of our team. So, we’d like to use this newsletter to introduce you to the incredible people that grow and prepare, pack and send the food you eat. Let’s start with Oliver! He grew up in Canberra on a block with plenty of space for a beautiful native garden and a large veggie patch. Young Oliver could often be found slipping under the mulberry tree netting or hiding in the pea bushes, shelling pods and munching on the sweet, fresh spheres right there among the tendrils. After high school, he moved to Melbourne to study Italian and sociology at Melbourne Uni and then to cement his new language skills he moved to Rome where he quickly fell further in love with Italian food and culture. After responding to an ad for a WWOOFer (willing worker on organic farms) he moved to Emilia Romagna, home of Parma ham and parmigiano cheese, where he worked at an agriturismo outside Bardi, an agricultural town surrounded by the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. Think rolling green hills and pretty woodlands, a fortress from the Middle Ages, porcini mushrooms in the autumn and wildflowers lining the roads in summer.

Why Ramarro?

A ramarro is a small, green lizard common across Italy. During long days in the field learning his trade, the ramarri became Oliver’s work companions, basking in the sun while he dreamed up a name for a business he wasn’t sure would ever exist. Although he worked on farms in Puglia and Sardinia too, his time in Bardi was formative. It always interests me that we ended up moving to a part of Victoria that resembles Bardi: surrounded by mountains, fertile soil, rolling green hills and plenty of European trees. On returning to Melbourne, Oliver became a restaurant manager, most notably running Cumulus Inc. and Supernormal with chef Andrew McConnell. He project-managed Marion wine bar and even ran Meatsmith for a while, so he has a unique understanding of the restaurants he now sells to. In 2013, we moved from a one-bedroom apartment in Carlton to our property in the Dandenong Ranges where our aim was only to have more space, start a family and grow our own veggies and fruit. But Oliver’s enthusiasm for growing meant that he was sowing the seeds of our future before we’d even left Carlton. And the rest – as they say – is history.

More about the early days of Ramarro Farm soon. Until then … eat well!

Words by Lisa Davis @by_lisa_davis

Eat seasonally with us

We’re farmers, not chefs, but we love to cook, and we love to eat and part of the fun of this newsletter for us will be the chance to share with you what we’re eating throughout the seasons. No doubt it’s stating the obvious to say we’re big believers in eating seasonally. There’s something so exciting about the build-up in anticipation we feel before a new crop is ready to eat. We long for tomatoes in the winter, but by the time Autumn rolls along we’re over them and desperate for our first radicchio salad with balsamic vinegar or our first plate of steamed purple sprouting broccoli simply dressed with olive oil and sea salt. This won’t be a newsletter of recipes (but we will link to recipes from the fantastic professionals that use our produce), it’s more an insight into what we’re growing, what we’re eating, who we are and even the foodie books we’re reading. A fortnightly slice of Ramarro life.

Roasted peppers with anchovies & fresh oregano

This week we’ve been enjoying the end of capsicum season with Janet’s peppers. Named for Oliver’s English aunty who made and loved this dish. Janet was a landscape architect who lived in a narrow five-storey home with clean lines and grand glazing. She was a generous host of long, leisurely lunches full of great food and wine. Oliver has fond memories of being pleasantly full after her lunches and sitting peacefully by the floor-to-ceiling windows watching the planes fly into Heathrow from the top floor of her North London home. We made Janet’s peppers recently when friends came for lunch and then saw a similar item on the menu at the new Florentino Cellar Bar, headed by chef Brendan Katich whom we’ve had the pleasure of working with at Nomad and Reine & La Rue for around six years now. We roast red bullhorn peppers (the long yellow capsicums we grow also work well) on the BBQ until they’re charred black, then cover in a bowl to sweat the skins off. Next we remove the seeds and arrange the now sweet and tender flesh on a serving dish, then drench in quality olive oil and top with the best anchovies we can find and a sprinkle of fresh oregano leaves. This week you’ll find some of the last capsicums of the season in our veg boxes available via our website for pick up from the farm or from Meatsmith Fitzroy.

And in case you’re wondering, our gorgeous plates come from design and food legends CIBI.

Coming up: all the reasons why we love puntarelle and how to prepare it.

Until next time … eat well!

Words by Lisa Davis @by_lisa_davis

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