June 8th, 2020Online works but face-to-face best for garlic grower
“COVID-19 hit pretty much in the middle of my garlic-selling season at the markets so yes, I was freaking out initially,” he says. “I had a lot of stock left but I simply put it online through Facebook doing home delivery to Ballarat, Daylesford, Clunes and environs. I moved it all in half kilo and one kilo lots and the response was phenomenal; I sold out in three weeks. Switching to online for me has been outrageously successful, better than my wildest dreams. I dropped it on doorsteps with my invoice details, working on a trust exercise and everybody paid. The interesting thing was nearly 80 per cent of them were new customers who had never dealt with me before, never been to a farmers market.”
Before moving into growing organic garlic, broad beans, snow peas and a few potatoes, Ross spent 20 years in the film and television industry including 10 years with the Blue Heelers’ art department. He moved to Creswick nine years ago to start Slaty Creek Organics, a certified organic farm with its produce sold at just a few markets in the Central Highlands area.
The 60-year-old said his first foray into growing garlic was during his film and television career when he bought a church in the Otways.
“A very good friend of mine, a marvellous gardener who just looks at things and they grow, suggested I grow some garlic. So I planted my first garlic in 1994 and showed it to my friend and he thought it was hilarious. I love a challenge so from then on I was going to become the best garlic grower in the world.”
Ross, a voracious consumer of garlic, said Creswick had the same perfect climatic conditions as the Otways.
“All through the Central Highlands you have great conditions, it is a dry land crop and I never irrigate, so as long as you get about 600mm of winter rainfall you are pretty good.”
Along with its flavour, Ross loves the “extraordinary health properties” of garlic, saying it is a natural antibiotic, a blood thinner and “there are probably things that garlic cures that they are not even aware of yet.”
“I never get a cold and am healthy as, I partly put that down to garlic. I swear by Kick A Germ Joy Juice, an old recipe handed down by hippies for years.”
Ross said there were about 700 different cultivars of garlic in the world and at the moment he has four growing on an economical scale with another six he is experimenting with. As for being an organic farmer, he never knew there was another way.
“I have always been an organic farmer and what I do now is just natural progression. I do like the credibility of that little piece of paper, it is outrageously expensive to be organically certified, but I like to say to people ‘I am for real’.”
Ross says organic is appreciated by certain demographs including older people and those demanding quality in their food.
“I find, especially here in the Central Highlands, that there is a very discerning, food-savvy clientele. I knew when I moved here, that they were pretty switched on and tended to support local organic farmers. And even when I shifted sales online over the last months, they continued that support.”
These days things haven’t changed much at the farm. Organic farming was never something Ross started doing to make a fortune, it was always a lifestyle option. However, that said, he is very optimistic for the future. None of his produce is coming on until October and he is sure the local markets will be back up and running as before, albeit with a few social distancing restrictions in place. And while it is very comforting to know he has a very loyal online customer base if public gatherings are closed again, he prefers the real thing.
“While the shutdown did make me consider how I do business, I thoroughly enjoy person-to-person interaction. I will keep the online option there but I still want markets to be my main business.”
Words: Donna Kelly & Tony Sawrey | Image: Kyle Barnes
