Our Story
Our dream was to always turn our neglected little block of land into something that transcended more than what a normal farm could. It was about creating a space that celebrated the land, the environment, food and community
The Harvest and Co is so much a part of our (Anthony and Tilly) story now that we find it hard to seperate ourselves from it. We first bought our little farm in 2008, a beautful little block of land that in farming terms would have been coined ‘a renovators delight’. 40 acres nestled in Yendon in the foothills of Mt Buninyong that we swiftly named Linden Park.
Back then we were full of youthful enthusiasm, being of 23 and 24 years of age, so decided we would take on the challenge of turning around a block of land who’s only ‘farm’ features were a handful of pine trees (the leftovers from a previous Christmas Tree farm) and a whole heap of noxious weeds. Perhaps we were blinded by our want to just live in the country, who knows, but boy did we maybe underestimate what was going to be involved…a trap we still fall for these days as we add new projects to the farm.
The Early Years - 2008 to 2015
As you can see from the picture back in 2008 there wasn’t much for us to base our vision on other than an old farm house, plenty of waist high grass and miles of elbow room.
But from the first time Tilly visited the farm in March 2008 we knew that this was the place for us. It’s hard to put your finger on just what it was exactlty, but all we knew was it always felt like home.
Those first few years were hard going we will admit, we planted over 1000 trees in those first few years, having to hand water each of them. We also moved up in a drought and we only had the one concrete tank to sustain us, the horses and the trees. But we made some of our most fond memories in those early days, living on borrowed furniture, using our ride-on mower to help us feed out the horses and everything else that made sure you were out working until well after dark on a regular basis.
It was in these early years though when we started talking and dreaming about our vision for what would eventually become The Harvest and Co. But for now it was all about laying down the groundwork.
Forward momentum - 2015 to 2019
Even though we had lived on Linden Park since 2008, we had spent most of our time travelling and working. Often the only times we could work done was on weekends when we rope in our families to help on working bees. But we had now set out the base for our farming business to start to take shape.
However at the start of 2015 things started to move in the direction we had always hoped for. We both had slight career changes which started to allow us to get more infrastructure going. We installed more paddocks, built a barn and went from one little water tank to having over 5 with 8 times the capacity. We were now ready to start to build on what we had dreamed about for a very long time.
The Harvest and Co - 2020 to now
2020 will be a year that will be remembered for a very long time. It forced a lot of change to a lot of people and we weren’t immune to this either, but for us it turned out to be a blessing. The work of our day jobs vanished overnight and we were forced to rethink hard about what to do. This was when we made the decision to finally take the leap and make the Harvest and Co a reality.
In the previous 12 years we had read extensively about small scale farming, attended courses, watched hours of instructional videos and got caught up in just about every TV show that was based on tree-changing. We knew it was our turn.
In September 2020 we got out the hammers, drills, angle grinders and nail belts and built our first mushroom farm building from scratch, all by ourselves. We installed the beginings of the Truffle farm (trees being planted in winter 2021) and we built the vermaculture recycling farm. It was a busy few months but we were ready and more importantly we were hungry for it.
We know that we are only very much at the start of our farming journey, but we know its the right choice for us. We have so much more that we are going to bring to life - Paddock to plate livestock, on farm dining experience, events and retreats and so much more.
So please, if you have read this far and want to keep following our story, follow us on social media or sign up to our mailing list.
