Farmers Scholarship

Our Story
Heirloom Harvest grew out of our passion for and enjoyment we gain from growing our own food. This passion took us from growing in our small back yard veggie patch to being professional market gardeners.

We believe there is no more rewarding feeling than sitting down to a meal you have grown yourself. There is something primal about growing food that is missing in the modern lifestyle. Preparing and enriching your soil, planting your chosen variety of seeds, nurturing the new green life sprouting from the earth, protecting your plants from hungry insects, harvesting your crop, turning a recipe into a true homemade meal, sitting down at your dinner table and enjoying your home-grown vegetables. Unfortunately, with our modern consumer economy approach to everything, this experience has been lost to most people. Our mission is to bring it back!

All the seeds we sell at Heirloom Harvest have been grown by us on our market garden. The varieties are the same as we grow and sell at our market stall. As we make our living from growing and selling vegetables (and seeds) you can be sure the varieties we offer are reliable and of the highest quality. We are not just seed savers we are seed breeders. We consistently select our seed lines for the best traits to continually improve their genetics.

About John and Tara
Tara loves gardening. She is at her happiest, covered head to toe in dirt, in amongst the veggies. Tara grew up in the Barossa Valley, immersed in the food and wine culture. Growing up she enjoyed visiting her grandparent’s farms in the Adelaide Hills and getting ‘stuck in’ to whatever farm work was being done. Tara studied Tourism and Hospitality Marketing at the University of South Australia, focusing on eco and environmental tourism, and has a successful career within the industry. After having their first child (Maya), Tara became concerned about the ‘artificial’ world that Maya would grow up in. For her, Heirloom Harvest is about reconnecting people with the earth and their food and in the process hopefully helping to create a better world for her children to grow up in.

John grew up on his family’s cereal and livestock farm before studying Agriculture at the University of Adelaide and going on to work in agricultural research. Growing food is in his blood. After realising there was something wrong with the modern food ‘industry’, John decided to try something different. He did some further study in social science and ethics before settling into a career in ecology. It was through his ecology career that he came back to growing food with new-found energy and enthusiasm. Rather than complaining about what is wrong with the current food system he decided to be part of the solution. Home food production (followed a close second by small scale organic agriculture) is the most sustainable and resilient food system and one of the best way people can contribute to the sustainability of society.

Tara ~ “Getting my hands dirty growing food is one of my favourite things to do. Planting a seed, nurturing the seedling, weeding, and watching a plant grow to its full potential is such a simple but rewarding pleasure.  Heirloom Harvest for me started as something I could do to make a small difference to our children’s future. I never imagined how much enjoyment I would get out of growing food for others and supplying seeds and information to help others grow their own food to.”

John ~ “I grew up on a traditional mixed farm and this is where I developed my understanding of our modern food system. Food is the single most important commodity for human wellbeing yet it is one that we value the least. This mismatch is something I have struggled with my whole life and there is no easy answer. This is one of my three reasons for starting Heirloom Harvest, to get more people involved in growing food so they can gain a better understanding of its true value. The second reason is that home (or small scale) food production is one of the best things that people can do for the environment and the third, growing your own food is fun and rewarding.”

“The Willunga Farmers Market Young Farmers scholarship gave us the courage to take the leap of faith to dive into farming and make our dream of running our own business a reality” say Tara.

In 2016 after being awarded the 3^RD Willunga Farmers Market, Young Farmers Scholarship, John and Tara set out to access to land suitable to their farming needs; quality water, soil fertility, a great relationship with land owners, and proximity to the Willunga Farmers Market.

With no current mechanism to connect those looking for land to lease, with those that have available land for lease, the search took time.

“After a lot of searching we found three property owners who were willing to sit down and discuss land sharing options. In the end, we chose our current site at Pages Flat as it ticked three of the four boxes – great owners, water availability and the short distance to the market. The soil was not perfect but we knew we could improve that. Good soil, water and location are obvious, but I can’t stress enough how important it is to have land holders that are like-minded and want you to be there”, says John.

Despite many challenges, both on and off farm, John and Tara are successfully farming and making a living from farming. Each week their colourful range of heirloom, open-pollinated, and organic vegetables and seeds are sold on demand at the weekly Willunga Farmers Market.

“We’ve fallen in love with our market lifestyle – harvesting the fresh produce and packaging our seeds each week. We have our regular customers, many who we know by name, plus new customers each week. We take pride in how we present our produce so the tables are always bursting with freshness and colour”, says Tara.

Growing a diverse range of open-pollinated seeds is an enormous feat.

“Growing seed crops is much more difficult than fresh produce, not only do you have to keep the plants growing healthily for up to four times as long as fresh crops, but you have to consider which crops will ‘cross’ with others and maintain appropriate isolation distances”, says John.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, approximately 90 per cent of the world’s crop diversity has been lost in the last century. The Butlers are working against this trend and ensuring that everyone can own locally grown and adapted seeds that have been selected for the best genetic traits.

“Over time open-pollinated varieties grow and adapt to their soil types, climates, latitudes and diseases. We are selecting our seed stocks for characteristics such as – longer harvesting periods, disease resistant, colour, flavour, and higher yields. However, we also allow a certain amount of genetic diversity in our seeds to help them adapt to our customer’s environments”, says John.

The Butlers have now purchased their own property at Tooperang, just 25km south of Willunga where their seed and veggie growing business is going from strength to strength.