Gamila MacRury

Saffron has been used in herbal medicine for many centuries and is considered a warming and stimulating herb. It is also starting to be explored in western medicine.

Mum's best friend when I was growing up was a Jewish lady who came via Shanghai as a child, it's for her that our Australian grown olives are now Kosher

A few weeks ago I had the chance to sit down and talk to Angie Asimus for the National Farmers Federation podcast. Their aim is to share stories from the farm and connect

International Womens Day 2022 and Why we should #BreaktheBias

Many of you who have been growing your saffron for several years now are asking, 'When should I lift?'. Well it depends, and here are the reasons.

While saffron might not be on your regular shopping list, it’s one of the most versatile spices and can be used in almost any dish you create. Discover the many ways you can use saffron in your culinary delights. 

Normally on a farmer's return to market they come bearing the fruits of their labour, literally, but that's not the case with olives. Check out our latest blog and find out which of our crowd favourite and most awarded olives are back!

Have you ever tried an olive straight off the tree only to spit it out in horror? What you taste is the compounds that give extra virgin olive oil its natural bitterness and a number of its health benefits; however they also make unprocessed olives inedible.

There are as many variations for making your olives edible/delicious as there are villages across the Mediterranean, which simply means there is no right way or wrong way, only the method that creates the style you love.

Whenever you preserve food, regardless of what it is, you have two options:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. kill all pathogens and ensure that nothing can enter the food until it’s ready to be consumed, e.g. pasteurisation

What is crocus sativus

Saffron is an autumn flowering crocus. It dies down during summer, and then in March, when the nights start getting cold, up will pop the first green tips. Flowers will generally follow about 3-4 weeks later, however this is very dependent on weather and corm size. The saffron ‘grass’ (what we call the leaves) will then grow all winter and die down in early spring.

Saffron reproduces by replication, i.e. the corms divide and create daughter corms, which means every 3 years you should lift your corms and divide them up, this ensures they have room to grow and reduces the risk of disease. Each corm generally produces one flower per season.

How to grow saffron

You can plant them in the ground or in a large deep pot. Regardless of which option you choose, good draining is critical to being successful. Plant your corms approximately 10cm deep and at least 10cm apart, don’t water them in, any time from late December through till early

It's that time of the year, where we start eating too much, drinking too much and panicking about how we're not going to get everything done before the end of the year.
Australian's summers, and Christmas specifically, are intimately linked with seafood, I think its the hot evenings and the cool freshness of the food styles often created using fish and crustaceans, which makes summer and fish just work. What's interesting though is most seafood isn't at it's best during Christmas in Australia, we really should be eating our oysters in August, but let's be honest, if you're from Melbourne, there is nothing to celebrate in August, it's cold, windy and grey. So it's fantastic that our 500 odd oyster farmers scattered around the south east coast of Australia know how to manage the little creatures to ensure we have excellent oysters come 25th December.

Considering the time pressures everyone is under at this time of year and the need for quick impressive recipes, I thought