Gourmet Farmer

It’s been 4 seasons and lots of hard lessons since Matthew set out to transform his slice of Tassie into a farm that grows healthy food while regenerating soils, leaving it more productive and healthier. He’s tried it all, so which ideas worked and which didn’t?

It’s high summer and Matthew is focused on making the most of the gardens first flush of raspberries. But with the garden and soil now in such rude health, he’s looking for ideas on how he can improve his approach to the animals he farms for the restaurant table by exploring the idea of using dual-purpose cattle breeds for milk and beef and a new breed of chicken that produces great quality eggs and meat.

With Spring in full swing and bugs in abundance, Matthew invites an insect scientist to survey the health and wealth of the farm’s insect population.

It’s Spring on Fat Pig Farm—the hungry patch—everything is furiously growing but there is almost nothing to harvest yet. Matthew creates an incredible pie with the few things that are available in the garden and learns the intricacies of how to forage for wild food in Tasmania.

With Sadie and Hedley away, Matthew has got his work cut out for him managing the farm on his own and repairing winter rot in the farm’s apple orchards. But to surprise Sadie for her birthday he badly wants to build her a new herb garden and plant a whole row of camellias before she returns.

After having the health of his farm soil tested Matthew receives the results and needs to explore new ways to rest and rehabilitate the damaged earth in his pig paddocks. He experiments with an acorn pig feed and builds his own mobile chicken pen to fertilise the soil with their life-giving poo.

If there is an art to outdoor cooking than why not have a barbecue that’s a work of art. Matthew realises a long held day dream when he installs an incredible outdoor fire pit built by one of Tassie’s most talented blacksmiths.

With Winter setting in Matthew welcomes a herd of goats to solve his blackberry infestation without using a single pesticide and begins to tackle Fat Pig Farms longterm soil health by planting an edible native garden.