G’day Katie and Hugh. How long have you called Harcourt home now?
Katie: I was born here. I was born at Castlemaine hospital – so all my life, except for about 15 years when I lived in Melbourne.
Hugh: I moved to Harcourt exactly 30 years ago. From Melbourne. Escaped from the city.
What brought you here Hugh?
Well – just getting out of Melbourne. I didn’t need to be working in Melbourne. I was doing a job that didn’t require me to be in an office. I was travel writing for Lonely Planet.
Now the two of you are pretty much synonymous with organic farming practices here in Harcourt. What does that involve at the moment?
Katie: We’ve moved more into being organic farming mentors actually. We learnt how to do it over about 20 years and didn’t have a lot of peers when we started. We got some great advice from other famers in other places and so learned how to do it, and then as we’ve stepped back from active farming ourselves we’ve really enjoyed mentoring a new generation both here on our farm and through other networks as well.
And also you’re involved with the nursery. Can you give me a little snapshot of what that entails?
Katie: We still keep our hands dirty by running Carr’s Organic Fruit Tree Nursery. That’s mainly me and my dad, Merv Carr, and my sister Liz Carr. Hugh is theoretically not part of the business. He just does lots of work for none of the glory (laughs).
Hugh: The tractor stuff. Catch our full chat with Hugh and Katie in today’s Mail…
