AN urban farm straddling the Wodonga Railway Station is studded with a vast array of native Australian herbs and plants.
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The native pepperberry plant Mountain Pepper, cinnamon myrtle and white mulberry shrubs grow alongside tufts of Australian thyme, parsley and lemongrass.
The 13-hectare Bunyip Hollow today supports one of the largest collections of native produce – with several hundred species – on country formerly reserved for a dairy farm.
Owners Cyan von Gija and Martin Page set out to develop a sustainable, organic farm a little more than two years ago.
A keen cook, von Gija was inspired by the ingredients he could not readily buy.
“I started doing a lot of research and found there were a lot of things grown native to Australia that we don’t use or appreciate at all,” he said.
“Native parsley is a good alternative to imported parsley; there is a native lemongrass too. Why would you use an imported one – there is no pithy stuff like the Thai one?
“That’s the kind of thing that motivates us.”
Perth-raised Mr von Gija said Australians were yet to embrace native produce because they still thought of them as survival foods.
He said early environmentalists had influenced the image of bush tucker.
“Full credit to (Australian naturalist) Harry Butler for introducing people to bush foods, but it also in a way gave people the image it’s only survival food,” he said.
Bunyip Hollow also runs rare animal breeds including Australian Harlequin Mini Meat sheep.
Mr von Gija said they would turn out their first organically-farmed mutton on the Border and North East early next year.
They chose mutton because it was harder for people to buy.
“The breed has a good yield, there is no shearing or mulesing and because they shed their wool there is no lanolin taste in the lamb,” he said.
“We’ve planted saltbush for the sheep to intensify the flavour; anything I can do to inch out 1 or 2 per cent of flavour I will do.”
He said Large Black and Wessex Saddleback-cross pigs were fed chestnuts, acorns, milk and quinces.
“We’re probably the only organically fed chestnut pork in the country,” he said.
The first release will be in summer/autumn.
White truffles are a couple of years away.
