Firstly, thank-you to all the lovely people who have already taken part in my little survey (if you don't know what I'm talking about you can go here to read all about it). It is so refreshing to get a clearer picture of where I'm at as a blogger, a photographer, a writer - so thank-you. One of the surprises which has come out of it so far is that more people would like to hear about farming and our rural lifestyle - who knew?! Well you asked for it so here it is...
We start harvesting our potatoes here on the farm in January (depending on the season) and this year we are just about to wrap up the whole show. For those who don't know much about growing potatoes they take 120 days to grow, which is quite short. So we plant them in Spring and harvest in Summer, we spray them to kill the tops off after they have flowered (some modern varieties don't flower) and to harden the skins. If you ever see 'new potatoes' advertised that means they are harvested a little earlier and have quite soft skins that you can rub off with your hands. These will almost always be at farmers markets and the like, where the potatoes are less handled from paddock to plate.
Mr M has been doing most of the pulverising this year, which is the process of chopping up all the plant tops before the harvester goes over and digs up all the tasty taters, so the actual plants don't clog up and get caught in the harvester. The harvester has a boom which sends the potatoes on a conveyor belt over into the bin trailers which are driven by another tractor. Lining up the harvester and the bin trailers can be quite the skill, our harvester driver Des and his bin trailer drivers have it fairly down pat.
The bin trailers are then carted to our packing shed (hence two bin trailers, tag team whilst one is in transit) where they are unloaded and the potatoes put through a grading line, then either packed into bulk bags (approx. 1 tonne +) or smaller bags (50kg, 20kg) or cartons (20kg) or crates (14kg) like you might see in Woolworths and Coles. Once they're packed it's off to markets in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane on trucks - which is where I come in, my 'day job' is the organising of the transport, liasing with our customers in the capital cities and all the fun that goes along with the produce industry!
Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella
Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella
6 comments:
Gorgoeus photos. I too get lots of requests for farm posts. Part of me wants to say "Really, you want more tractors? Really???"
cool! i think it is really interesting to read about where things come from and how they are grown. very informative!
Can you tell me where i can buy you potatoes in Melbourne? x
Gorgeous photos! It is very interesting to hear what goes into farm life. I would love to live on a farm one day.
My Dad grew up in Mirboo North. He would tell us stories of watching the Italian prisoners of war labouring to clear land for potato growing. Thanks for sharing some of the process with us Emma - it's really important for us all to have an understanding of where our food comes from.
Hard work! At least there's a beautiful view to look at :)
Thank you for all your comments :)
@A Farmers Wife: I know - MORE tractors? It seems oh so boring to me!
@Jody: The majority of our potatoes end up in Woolworths and are Golden Delights, any Golden Delights that you in Woolies from January-June will be from the Thorpdale region, not all will actually be from our farm but they will most likely all be from our growers (we act as produce merchants, buying and selling other growers produce). You may even see a Durkin Produce hessian bag at the markets, big green D logo!
@Fiona: That is soooo incredibly interesting to me! My grandfather came to Thorpdale in 1946-47 so anything pre 40's I don't know much about. There is a LOT of Italian migrants in Thorpdale (we are about the only Irish Catholics!) so that doesn't surprise me. I'd love to know a bit more about the original settling of the area though. Narracan where we are getting married was apparently a bustling town of thousands, now all that's there is a hall and the church.
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