Peter and Colleen Osborn’s rustic home among the gum trees not only has lots of plum trees, but almost every other kind of fruit tree imaginable, and along with a sheep or two they’ve expanded their bountiful backyard to include a commercial quantity of asparagus – one of the first to do so in our region.
Shire of Chittering councillor Peter has an extensive farming background; from dairy farming in Victoria, to managing the New Norcia Benedictine community farm and the Denmark and Cunderdin Agricultural school properties. He is, as his wife Colleen says, “Just not happy unless he’s mucking around in the dirt.”
The Osborns have spent the last six years improving their 34 acre property, Wootra Farm, transforming it into a successful bed and breakfast and planting extensive orchards to supply their popular jams and preserves which they sell at the Bindoon Farmers’ market and local events such as the Taste of Chittering.
“We only have a small amount of land,” says Colleen, who is familiar to many from her former role as Chittering Tourism Officer and face behind the annual Chittering Wildflower Festival, “but I think it’s almost immoral not to do something productive with it.”
Looking for a niche market product that made the most of their solid water supply, Peter began experimenting with asparagus; a work of trial and error since his new horticultural venture has very few local precedents. Starting with a 10 year-old crown (a crown is the dormant root ball of the plant) rescued from a previous property.Peter gathered the bright red seed-berries to germinate new plants and was pleasantly surprised to discover, despite all advice to the contrary, that his 18 month old plants were capable of producing a viable crop.
“I think because our climate isn’t cold enough, the plants don’t die off completely,” he says, “We experimented with a crown after harvest, covering it with 20cm of compost, thinking it would rest until next season – however a healthy crop of fresh spears popped up 10 days later!” (see more about the asparagus plant on page 26).
Peter’s ongoing quest to discover the growth possibilities of the plant in our ‘terroir’ or particular local micro climate and soil type, has led to the production of approximately 6000 seedings which the Osborns will plant out this year – just as soon as we get a decent rain.
The new seedings will join the 3000 existing plants nestled into carefully constructed furrows in the fertile flats of Wootra farm. The couple anticipate picking up to 180 kilos of the vegetable this year – up a 100 or so kilos from last year.
“Stringybark (Winery and Restaurant) will take some, as well as the Bindoon Bakehaus,” says Colleen, “The rest we plan to sell at local markets and also at our farm gate. I like to sell locally, because I like to buy locally,” she says. “There’s nothing better than eating a completely locally produced meal.”
