Drop us a line if you are interested,

Phone   03 5659 2384                   

International  +61 3 5659 2384       GMT+10 Australian Eastern Time.

Email : SustainableFarming@humusplus4.com.au

Postal : C/O Post Office, Poowong, Victoria Australia,  3988.        

An insight to Jeff the founder.

Jeff inherited his environmental passion from his Grandfather and his love of the bush from his Father. He started farming at the age of 16 years and was a member of one of the first “Farm discussion” groups to be formed. He worked off farm in the early 1960’s for the Forest Commission of Victoria and developed his Forestry interest from there. He has been planting trees and looking after the natural world since 1970.

In 1976, Jeff and his Wife Elvie, opened the Nyora Picnic Farm to teach the city populace about farming and nature. It was very successful, becoming the busiest in the state. Jeff took groups on bush walks, farm walks and held classes for potential tree changers. Elvie and Jeff were foundation members of the Poowong and District Landcare Group. Elvie has served many years as treasurer for that group and the SGLN. Jeff has been coordinator of many projects, editor of the monthly Poowong Newsletter for 227 editions. He was also carer of Land care’s equipment and promotional goods. Jeff was often the main fund applier for the group.

More of the Journey

He was employed by the South Gippsland Landcare Network for many years as a Pest plant and animal Facilitator.

During this time he introduced helicopters to clean up the steep country and won many State acclaims for his achievements. He also served on the management Committee of SGLN.

It was at this time that he became more aware of the soil problems and decided to do something about it. He researched the problem on the internet and started to understand the life in the soil.

Elvie and Jeff stumbled on one of the main answers and we decided to promote it to any one that would listen.

Due to the interest that this generated, he was encouraged to become a soil consultant. We didn’t charge for this service, but we made lots of friends.

Our farm of 94 acres at Poowong is set up as a demo site and we do our own trials and allow Landcare to use it for their trials. We have visitors, school groups and skeptics come and see our efforts on the farm and waterways.

We have addressed severe tunnel erosion, Landslips and denuded creek banks and now have many birds and native animals, with eels and yabbies back in our creek.

The farm has almost doubled production and profitability in the 47 years we have been here. This is in spite of the thousands of trees and shrubs we have planted.

Other Stories

Jeff was responsible for releasing the new variety of Blackberry rust into Sth Gippsland and the Ragwort moth into the same area. The Dock Moth trials were also done on our property.

He was a foundation member of the Blackberry task force and the Ragwort taskforce. He liases and works with Melbourne Water giving the Community input to their enterprises. He is also the official rain recorder for the local area to Melbourne Water.

We worked closely with Professor Tim Ealey (Dr Mangrove) revegetating Western Port Bay with Seagrass and Mangroves. We became involved in pasture and soil carbon research to deal with climate change. In this project we worked with sustainability groups to ensure a viable future for farming.

Jeff would often speak to groups such as schools, garden clubs, Rotary and environmental groups.

Jeff organized field days, info nights for our group and others. He also wrote environmental and educational articles for newspapers, farm magazines and radio.

Please note:

Any body reading this must realize that these efforts over many years were a partnership between Elvie and Jeff, as farming and broader environmental work, is always a partnership.