Every winter we gather the entire Ramarro Farm team for an epic celebration. A long and leisurely lunch at one of the restaurants we supply. A time to celebrate the year that’s past and look ahead to the next, to eat and chat and reconnect. We gather in winter when we all have more energy. It’s a great way for the team to experience the innovative ways restaurants use the produce they grow. Most of all, it’s a chance to say thank you. A happy, enthusiastic team is so important. We all spend so much time at work and farming is not always easy, but our team conducts themselves with passion, professionalism and care and we appreciate it.
This year all 16 of us dined out at Bar Liberty in Fitzroy and what a feast it was! Bar Liberty is one of our longest standing customers. They’ve been great supporters of the farm since the early days. This time the connection was doubled – the head chef is our manager Rhys’s brother-in-law – and chef Doug spoiled us. Some highlights were a salty, light and fluffy flatbread served with whipped cultured cream. Crunchy puntarelle with mussels and red onion. A delicate whole flounder served with lime and Lebanese cress. And our gorgeous radicchio rosa, so pretty on the plate, dressed with preserved Ají Limón chillies from last summer.
A special shout out went to Sarah, our packing manager, who has been working with us for seven years!! We welcomed new team members: Abbie, Auria, Oska and Diami. We celebrated our new tractor and the ways it makes our farming lives easier, and we congratulated ourselves on an amazing potato harvest – a first for Ramarro Farm. How incredible do fresh, new potatoes grown in healthy soil taste! We’ve never eaten so many potatoes in so many different ways as we did this year.
Over lunch we raised our wine glasses and gave thanks for the brilliant salad makers, the radish bunchers, the garnish punneters and beneficial insect monitors, the radicchio mixers, the washers and the packers. But things don’t slow down for long on the farm. This year we’re working on a new system for trellising our tomatoes and soon (mid-September) our tomato seedlings will be available for the home-gardeners out there to purchase from the retail outlets we supply or pick up from the farm. We’ve turned over two new fields at our Wandin farm and have plans to grow fennel, leeks, kohlrabi, corn, spinach, cress and melons. We’re building a new packing shed which means the whole team will be together more which can only be a happy thing.
AND we’ve got a very exciting new project underway: Ramarro Farm flowers! Rachelle has had an interest in flower growing for years and it’s so satisfying to be able to help fulfil this passion of hers as we expand our farm. In fact, one of the loveliest things about our yearly staff lunch is getting to know our team better, understanding their interests and finding ways for each of them to contribute in their own unique way. I loved hearing everyone’s stories of their own gardens. Despite farming all week, so many of us still take joy in planning our own productive gardens at home. A row of citrus along a fenceline, an espalier fruit tree project, a herb and flower garden to attract birds and butterflies. It always delights me that, even though our team receives a weekly veg box from us, they still grow their own veg at home. Someone brings in celery because they know our son loves it. Another a bottle of their special tomato passata or chilli sauce. Growers are generous people by nature. They’re great people to spend our days with.
Until next time … eat well.
Lisa, Oliver and the Ramarro Farm team
Words by Lisa Davis