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Hardiness

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It’s unseasonally dry.

The Place of Wonder dam is empty and at Newfield, Campbell’s creek hasn’t flowed for 18
months. Dry soil is enhancing an inversion layer of cold. Our daily weather is up for grabs.

Soil vitality supports healthy plants and is critical, more now than ever. However, although
stewarding soil vitality is my focus, in this paradigm many typical plant behaviours have
changed. Germination is slow. Variety variability is heightened. For example, this autumn,
Quince ‘Smyrna’ shone with abundance but Quince ‘Champion’ struggled. Loquats are
flowering sporadically and evergreens are becoming semi-deciduous. For those species
adverse to difference, its disconcerting but to the savvy steward, it is also a beautiful teacher.

For as long as I have been in the education system, it has focused on teaching WHAT things
are. You have been there. This is a cow. It has four legs and makes this noise. Alluding
that if an animal looks this way and makes that noise then it must be a cow and that is all
there is to know. Similarly, this is a rose with thorns, multiple petals, a cluster of central
stamens and pinnate foliage, anything with these common features must be a rose.

And while knowing WHAT things are is important, climate change proves to us that our
education shouldn’t stop there. We need to know HOW things relate to their environment
and the other living things within their space.

We need to know this to better understand WHAT species, or better still, what group of allied
species will be hardy in our new climate normal.

So, in the spirit of fostering hardiness, can I encourage a few actions?

Keep a garden journal. Use this to note what plants are doing, under what conditions, when
and with whom.

Save your own seed. Home grown seed is imprinted with a biome relevant to your
conditions and soil, for your space, it’s many jumps ahead of seed sourced from elsewhere.

Share and compare notes of what is happening in your space with neighbours and friends
alike.

Learn more about your plants, not just who they are but what they offer, who they like to
have a relationship with and which microclimate they appreciate.

Looking ahead, let’s work to learn not just the WHAT about individual species but about their
HOW and particularly their relationship to place, to others and to you.

Love where you live xx

The REAL journey – Why our philosophy means so much

Are you a list person? I am a list person and at one point in the last couple of months I had seven active lists. On my phone, above my desk, hanging off the kitchen fridge, at work, in the car – they were ruling my life! Taking on ownership of the restaurant that I had been managing was always going to be challenging and my lists were all-consuming. Irrespective of these lists, there was one personal aspect that took me completely by surprise; defeating my internal cultural normal.

What do I mean, by internal cultural normal? I’ll get to that.

Human observer and commentator, Hugh Mackay, attempted to prepare me for this defeat when he wrote about a humans’ innate need for security through routine, in his book The Art of Belonging’. But I didn’t listen. I continued making lists detailing changes to things like the drink’s menu, the restaurant, the décor, you name it! You see the restaurant that I was managing wasn’t a restaurant that reflected me and my values. With an Italian overlay, Nico’s was completely the alter ego of the previous owners. Several of my lists related to the transitioning process. My intention was to evolve the restaurant from a typical Italian Pizza and Pasta venue to one which delivered more than a meal.

My new restaurant needed to reflect environmental respect, putting decision-making around food in the hands of customers and involve a local community of suppliers. In the future, I see REAL Pizza Pasta Salads delivering this, and so much more. A foodie community hub. A place where volunteering connections are made. An introduction to doing food-related things differently.

My mentor Charlie Carrington (ex-MasterChef and Melbourne-based Atlas Restaurant owner) went to great pains to encourage me to never lose my vision. He said, “the moment you bend your vision to suit others, you are working for their goal and not your own and that’s when work becomes a task.”

My lists formed this paradigm. All the while I viewed transitioning to be my major challenge. An external attempt at taking existing customers on the journey with me while seeking new ones. A true venue that caters or all. All the tasks seemed external and action based.

What my lists didn’t reflect was the change that had to occur within me.

Five years managing a restaurant under an owner with completely different beliefs and values compared to me had sewn so much culture and habit within me. The contrast in owners was palpable. Staff have even commented, ‘how you two work together is surprising’. I know that there were many times that both of us tired of one another but for levels of reasons we needed each other. And today we remain friends.

The biggest evolution had to come from within me. I had to shake off the Nico’s and bring on the REAL. Turns out this was a far more complex task than I gave it credit! Away from the restaurant my vision was sparkling and clear. At the restaurant it became buried in habit and assumption. Taking yourself to an examination table is not nice but in this case was essential. For the restaurant to transition to REAL I had to unpack each of my assumptions and measure them according to my values, and not those of others. This meant questioning everything – from purchasing ingredients, dealing with waste as well as leading staff.
It was such an all-consuming personal transformation that I felt supportive friends and family slipping away. All my focus and energy had to be on breaking these assumptions. It was tumultuous. I didn’t realise what was going on let alone the others around me. Three and a half months into restaurant ownership I surfaced. It was surreal, like a spell had been broken. I felt that I could breathe, I knew where I was heading and the transition – by no means complete – seemed more tangible and real. I could be a mother, a friend and a community member again!

REAL is largely about challenging assumptions.

Giving new ways of doing a place in your life, reassessing ways of doing in light of new priorities and giving redundant ways of thinking the flick. I am grateful that I have been through this journey as the process of assumption breaking is such a recent experience that I feel well placed to support others interested in challenging their cultural normalities. Whether it be bringing in a container for your takeaway, reskilling at a food preparation workshop or choosing regional ingredients rather than international for your pizza, I (we) will be here to support you!

Many of you reading this who know me may not have seen evidence of this personal journey but for those who did, thank you for your support and understanding.

Kylie