Southern Harvest is super delighted to be able to offer you the opportunity to Visit Three Wonderful local Farms in One Day!!

Alternative Life Learning Farm, Bent Shed Produce and Corang Estate Winery.

The day will start at 9am at An Alternative Life Learning Farm. A sustainable and environmentally friendly mixed farming business and social enterprise dedicated to sharing knowledge around sustainable food production and creating food systems that are resilient to a changing climate. Established in 2012 with the aim of creating a resilient and sustainable farm, they have worked over the last 10 years to develop a wide range of growing systems that allow food production year round regardless of conditions. In 2019 the farm opened as a learning centre so as to share knowledge with others interested creating their own small scale resilient food systems. The farm grows a wide range of fruits, vegetables and herbs and utilises a range of practices that support local biodiversity and help build resilience to extreme weather conditions. Join us for a guided tour of the orchards and gardens, meet the chooks and ducks and enjoy a morning tea of farm produce.

The middle of the day will be spent at Bent Shed Produce, best-known for their Australian native flavours – herb and spice mixes, and fresh products. While some of these are harvested from locations across Australia, the rest are grown, foraged, or found on their bush property in Lower Boro. Join Fiona and Pete to discover locally-grown native produce, and find what is there in the wilds of the Bent Shed’s regenerating Yellow Box and She-Oak bushland. On your visit, you’ll see:

    • The commercial, natural, and experimental native produce plants and crops,
    • The Bent Shed itself, where the herbs and spices are dried, ground, and mixed into our signature products. The poultry paddocks, with the mixed populations of ducks, chooks, and guinea fowl,
    • The Maremmas protecting the poultry; and the newly-arrived 13-week-old Maremma-in-training (and have puppy cuddles!),
    • What happens when you let plants self-seed, and how this can produce surprisingly good harvests with little effort,
    • That a lot of the weeds taking over the gardens are, in fact, edible and useful. Yes, even the nettles …

All products will be available for tasting and purchase, including eggs and fresh produce, and there will be a cooking demonstration/workshop leading into lunch. Bring your own lunch, or purchase lunch onsite. Fiona will be indulging her passion for cooking with the native flavours and all preferences can be catered for. Note: foods contain meat, gluten, egg, nut, or milk products will be clearly identified.

The third stop of the day will be Corang Estate. Nestled in the beautiful Southern Tablelands of NSW between Canberra and the coast, Corang Estate is an idyllic mountain bushland property on the banks of the Corang River. The mission at Corang Estate is to capture the very best of our Southern NSW cool climate wine region. Sourcing fruit from key vineyards in Tumbarumba, Hilltops, Canberra District and of course our own Corang Estate vineyard gives us the diversity and flexibility to capture the essence of this special place. Our winemaking takes place in Murrumbateman, the heartland of fine Southern Tablelands wine. You will have a vineyard tour with owners Jill & Michael Bynon. There will be the chance to see up close some of their sustainability practices, including sheep grazing and how they work with nature on their property. You will also enjoy a tasting of their delicious wines (for the over 18’s of course!) and plenty of opportunities to ask questions about local cool climate viticulture while overlooking the magnificent views across the vines and the Budawang Mountains in the distance.

Tickers here.