Let’s pretend we live in a world where priority is given to cheap food. Let’s take this notion very seriously, let’s take it all the way to its end goal. That is to say that ‘cheap food’ is valued more than the continuation of the family farm, our bustling regional towns, a decentralised food system and allowing any child to grow food for a livelihood should they choose too when they become adults. What does this future look like? Well apart from some regional areas that become tourist destinations due to their unique natural beauty and proximity to city centres. The rest of the country will be handed over to corporations to grow food and fiber the cheapest way possible. Because this is what they do best.

As I write this week's newsletter I’m sitting on a small hill which overlooks our largest dam. The sun has just ducked down behind the tallest tallowoods and a rather large camphor laurel tree. I’m sitting here waiting for the last crop of winter vegetables to be irrigated. We don’t yet have an automatic timer so it’s a good excuse to sit in the field and just admire all that is going on. Our calendar is still telling us it’s winter, but as I rest on a soft patch of clover, I am witnessing what seems to look and feel a lot more like Spring...

I would like to deepen our connection. This is not just about food, farming and our planet, these things have become so fixated in our collective minds that we have forgotten why we care about these issues in the first place. We don't care about living longer so we can be the only ones alive, we don't care about saving the planet so we can sit around the campfire by ourselves. What meaning does any of this stuff actually have without each other?

It’s a wet old week here on the farm and despite the rain I can feel the subtle changes in heat and humidity when working in the field. Whilst out in the fields I witnessed the first of the White Cabbage Moth appear after it’s winter hiatus, she fluttered from one plant to the next fastidiously placing a single tiny cream coloured egg on the underside of each leaf. In four days time each of her eggs will hatch out a single little hungry green caterpillar. These voracious eaters know it is their time to shine and unless we keep their numbers under control, they will devastate our crops before summer is bearing down upon us.

Aussie farmers are just barely surviving by the skin of their teeth. Since the year 2000 over 39,000 farms have disappeared. That’s roughly a third of all farms in Australia and that number continues to decline today. I fear with the climate becoming more unpredictable, the droughts lasting longer and the floods more intense and frequent, may spell the end for many farmers already struggling to survive...

It's Tuesday afternoon at 3pm, I have sat down to write this newsletter with the beautiful warm afternoon sun soaking my back. It feels delightful after such a frosty finger numbing morning harvesting your veggies. Prior to sitting down, I was at the pack shed with Dad and Lochie getting things ready for our early start tomorrow at 3:30am. We have come up with a new system to pack your orders...

I'm going to have a rant this week! So here I am driving around the mid north coast delivering your fruit and veg boxes while listening to the ABC radio. The radio host announces a report by chief vet, Alex Brittan, allegeing Greyhound Racing NSW was underreporting dog deaths and overlooking animal welfare violations. It was another scathing report into greyhound racing in New South Wales which has prompted the peak body’s CEO to resign and forced the state government to open an inquiry and threaten to sack the board.

Last week we harvested, packed and delivered more veg boxes across the Mid North Coast than we ever have before in our farm's 5 year history. We are blown away by the number of new customers joining our family of food lovers each and every week. It's hard to express in words how thankful we all are for your support....

Open days, like Hasting Farm Gate Tour changes the game! Being able to have the farm open to you all, creates an experience, and a space to not only meet in the real, but also get amongst the food you eat! It’s a great tour! See where your food is grown, hear about the farmers story, ask questions and learn about how they do what they do.

It's Saturday morning and as I write this I am close to the fire watching the rain fall slightly at an angle outside of our living room window. The southerly buster has arrived overnight and the temperature has plummeted. The morning has been spent chasing the neighbours cows out of our fields of vegetables where the soft muddy ground is allowing them to do quite a bit of damage. I also had to finish off planting the cauliflowers...

Thanks to all you legends who support us, little old Sohip has had to find a bigger coolroom to store your veggies in and allow us to feed this growing community. We built the last coolroom just over a year ago now, thinking it would be plenty big enough to keep things cool for the next few years. How wrong we were, 12 months later and we are once again out of room...

The Lambert family have been farming for nearly a century! Over the last 70 year they have nurtured the Lambert Dry pumpkin to grow in size and colours through the help of bees pollinating and propagating. From humble beginnings The Lambert Dry is a pumpkin we don’t come across every day...