Farmers find success growing in Riverland’s dry climate

Well, we’ve had it forever. My grandfather had it 100 years ago. So we’ve been here a long time. We were away for quite a few years, but we came back 12 years ago and we’ve got a vineyard mainly here. So and then the grapes have been really bad, as you know. So before that though, we thought, oh, we’ll start growing vegetables. So we got into sweet potatoes 1st and then we were selling them at the Adelaide Showgrounds farmers markets and everyone was saying, well, you’ve got the hot climate, can you grow ju turmeric and ginger? So we, we bought $500 worth of each and the ginger failed, but the turmeric really took off. And so, yeah, yeah. So explain for us how then it’s grown over the last six years. Well, we only did a little bit at the start. We had no idea what we’re doing, but no one else grows it in South Australia. But everyone can grow and you only take a piece of a turmeric and and it will grow. Any piece of of there will just put in the ground anywhere in Australia. It’s like garlic. You can grow garlic, you can grow turmeric. Thinking about sweet potatoes, our puppy dogs, but the sweet potatoes around Maine because, well, there’s turmeric and there’s the in the field in the in the foreground there. The turret flowers are beautiful too. You can eat the whole plant actually, you know, you know, eat the these, you can eat the plant, the flowers. Our our niece actually had the flowers in her wedding bouquet. These have died off a little bit now, but she’s a vegan and I’m sure she ate the bouquet after the wedding. Nothing goes too late and I’m surprised. I’m. Yeah, I’m surprised at how. Wow, thanks so much for demonstrating how I’m surprised at how large the plant is. Yeah, it’s like a cannibally. It grows. Oh, that’s a good meat or high. Yeah. And I know they grow really well. They never, they don’t die or plant 1000 and everyone grows. So that’s a pretty tough plant. And was that much and was there much trial and error in it or did it just main just basically took really well? Yeah, we just put it in the ground and away it went. But that’s like, yeah, all the all the ginger died though. So you know it just happens to grow nicely here. I don’t think anywhere around Australia grows nicely. So yeah, everyone should have it because of the medicinal purposes. It’s it’s fantastic stuff. Yeah. You don’t want to let the secret out too much and have everyone growing it and you’ll lose your business. But now, so where? Where do you sell it to? And has it been pretty popular? Ah yes, we sell out most weeks. Well, we sell out. Yeah. I always sell it at the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market in Adelaide. So we go down every weekend with our sweet potatoes mainly, but always have a few garlic and turmeric. And what else do we sell? Garlic. Chimnik Rhubarb. Rhubarb’s really good with calcium. Yeah. Which one try and sell products that are health orientated spare. Oh, we’ve got the spirit is growing too, but we don’t sell that. But yeah, we’re all organic. So yeah, so no questions or anything. The farmers markets are fantastic to grow and sell for. I think there’s a lot of stuff about the supermarkets lately, but we tried the supermarkets but they weren’t very good to us. So no, right. And so there again, how do how do people use the turmeric? We have a formula for a tonic, so we have a teaspoon of that every day. And what it is, we sell our turmeric at 100 gram punnets. So that whole lot of turmeric a bit more than. Yeah, about like that with a little bit more. So all that you throw in a blender, you put in a teaspoon of black pepper and two tablespoons of honey and the juice of the lemon and blitz it and then put it in a jar then in the fridge. And that size actually lasts peak myself a week when we have a teaspoon each every morning. It doesn’t taste nice. I won’t. They they used to make you swear by it. Yeah, I know, but I prepare myself. So I think, right I’ve got to have my medicine so I just take a teaspoon of of the turmeric and then get my orange juice ready and swig it down quickly. Whereas you you mix it in your orange juice, don’t you. So yeah but you know we’re we’re fighting you know Pete’s nearly 70 and and I’m not far behind him. So yeah, you know we we work every day out in the block and everything and our bones are are good and yeah, everything. So yeah, we we swear by it and yeah you you reckon people should get get to know it a bit better and use it for different things. I think everyone takes the tablets and the powder. Everyone knows turmeric these days. When you have it fresh, it just makes so much difference. It’s just beautiful stuff. You both seem to be really in your element and you obviously love the farming life. Yeah. Oh yes, farming is the way to go. Small farm went up only small scale. But no, it’s fantastic. It’s working for a living. The young girl that was in the photo before, Jenna, she’s being corporate and she came to us just for, you know, she said, oh, I just need a job she wanted. She’s looking for work in Barma Incorporate. And so she started working for us and she says, Oh my God, I am never going back to corporate. I love this life, you know, You know, come to work, bring my dog. And she said, don’t you dig without me especially, Yeah, that’s Jenna there. She said, don’t you dig without me? Because she loves digging with sweet potatoes, love getting in the in the soil. It’s beautiful weather up here in the Riverland too, so we’re very lucky. Even in winter time there’s a lot of rain, usually in Adelaide, but it’s not raining up here, which is probably why the turmeric grows so well, as well as the sweet potatoes. We’re a lot hotter than the southern area of Adelaide, so yeah, it’s it’s really good.