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On
250 acres beside the Barrington River,
our Certified Organic, Biodynamic farm,
"Barridge", carries approximately 45
head of Devon cattle, 1100 olive trees,
a garlic crop, 100 Black Walnut trees
and a small orchard. We are in the
early stages of building a sustainable,
energy efficient, solar home on the
property.
The
Barrington River flows down from the
Barrington Tops - an unspoilt
wilderness covering more than 1,200 sq
km of land.
Our
section of the Barrington
River
The
farm is located 19 km from the
townships of Gloucester and Barrington
and is an approximate three hour drive
north of Sydney.
Gloucester
sits in a picturesque river valley
surrounded by hills at the junction of
the Avon, Gloucester and Barrington
rivers. The closest town to Barrington
Tops National Park, it makes a perfect
base for adventure activities in the
region, including trout fishing,
canoeing, horse-riding, bushwalking and
camping in the park. It is 271 km
north-east of Sydney and has a
population of approximately
2,600.
We
fell in love with the property because
of the beautiful Barrington River, the
views over the Barrington Valley to the
Bucketts and the fact that it had not
seen any pesticides or herbicides. We
also liked the fact that there was no
home on it, as we wanted to build one
using our design ideas and we wanted to
be self-sufficient.
Orchard
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The
farm was purchased in 1999. It had been
used as a dry block for cattle. All
that was on it was an old set of cattle
yards and a bit of a track. The
paddocks had been cleared to a certain
extent, but they were unimproved and
strewn with old logs, stumps, and rocks
and they were covered in fireweed.
Since
early 2000, each Spring and Autumn,
Biodynamic Prep 500 has been sprayed
over the paddocks. Thousands of hours
have been spent manually picking
fireweed over the past 7
years.
A lot
of new fencing, new cattle yards, a
cattle grid, and two kilometers of road
have been built. A lot of work has been
done to clear the paddocks and improve
the soil.
We
were fortunate to be able to purchase a
small herd of Devon cattle from an
organic property and we have leased a
couple of bulls and now have a lovely
herd which is growing year by year.
This year we should be in a position to
sell a number of steers.
Devon
Cattle
In
December 2000, the olives were planted
in 45 degree heat. We have mainly
Italian varieties - Frontoio, Leeccino,
Pendolino and West Australian Mission
and a small number of Giant Kalamatas.
We have not as yet had a crop, but we
as we are not in a position to harvest
at the moment, this has not been a
concern.
Right
from the beginning it was decided that
the farm would be organic. We were
fortunate to be granted our Biodynamic
status in 2006, after 2 years in
conversion.
••••••
We
are members of the Hunter Biodynamic
Group and the Exotic Farm Produce
Group, Gloucester.
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