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The Moorabool News – 3 May, 2022 Page 7
Stuart Grigg with his children in their broccoli field and, the view from his tractor of a recently planted field. Photos - submitted
Ballan, Bolwarrah and broccoli
By Lachlan Ellis
Commonly known as ‘spud country’, it is now turning green with a Ballan agronomist putting his theory into practice, after buying a property in Bolwarrah to grow potatoes and greens with a focus on sustainability. Stuart Grigg purchased 160 acres of land in Bolwarrah with wife Kate last March, and though the area is certainly known for farming, Mr Grigg has a unique take on it. “We’re challenging the norm, we want to bring a lot of employment to the area. This is a fairly manual crop, so we’ve got 6, 7, 8 people harvesting this crop, two to four days a week. We harvest over a 13-week period as well,” he told the Moorabool News. “One of my focuses is around sustainability, and being able to produce a crop in an environmentally sustainable way. We use a lot of what’s called integrated pest management practice, where we try to look after beneficial insects to take
care of pests, and minimise our interaction with pests, and our impact on the soil.”
veggie production, so it was about time to put what I preach into practice I suppose,” he said.
Having grown up around farms – Ballan is “the most urban place I’ve lived”, Mr Grigg says – returning to his roots has been something of a dream.
“The property was a bluegum plantation about four years ago. It was so rough – rocks, sticks, crap everywhere … the roughest farm you could find. It was 12 months and two days after we bought the place that we started picking broccoli … it’s a crop with not too many inputs, that I know very well.
“We’d been looking for a property north of the highway, close to the bush, something that was usable in terms of the acreage as well. Something we could turn into a horticultural operation,” he said. “We sold our house in Ballan to buy the farm, and I suppose buy our dream and get out of town. I’ve grown up on farms … I’m a little bit like a caged animal I suppose.” Mr Grigg studied horticultural science and container production at university, going from growing roses, to hops and tobacco, and then to veggies, which he said was his passion. “Broccoli was sort of a later part of the equation after we got everything else sorted … I’m an agronomist working in
“To turn the farm around in such a short time has been phenomenal…we’ve got to thank the people that have supported us, we’ve had a huge amount of support from veggie growers that I work with around the state, and the team at Fresh Leaf in Werribee, they’ve been fantastic as well.” The Griggs’ broccoli is sold to Coles via Fresh Leaf, and Mr Griggs says it’s “probably the biggest and heaviest broccoli you’ll ever see”. Their latest crop was planted in March and is due for harvest in May/June.
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