It’s an exciting venture at the cutting edge of gourmet food culture, but not without an enormous amount of risk. Every day Epicurean Harvest's Erika Watson, 29, and Hayden Druce, 27, are placed at the mercy of the seasons.
Just before Christmas a hail storm swept through, taking out $10-$15,000 worth of produce. For a couple whose sole source of income is their produce, it was a lean six weeks.
Fortunately some suppliers still took some of the produce, creatively marketing it as “hail-kissed.”
“The biggest challenge was how to develop systems with no money,” Druce says.
“We are developing land that won’t go down hill. We don’t want to come and rip everything out of it and leave.”
They found themselves applying the principles of long-term soil management that they learned while studying horticultural science at Sydney University.
First meeting during their course, Druce – a former Winmalee High student – then went to France for further study. Watson decided to pop over for a six-week holiday, which turned into six months and the start of their relationship. Not long after returning to Sydney, Druce was offered a farm manager’s position in Blackheath, which turned into leasing the 0.3 hectare patch to grow their own produce.
They put the first seedlings in the ground in the winter of 2013, commuting from Sydney daily. Just three weeks before the October 2013 bushfires they moved to Blackheath and although not under immediate threat from fire, fire crews were backburning just 50m from their house in their mission to stop the State Mine fire from spreading.
It was enough to rattle them, and Watson could be seen making Sydney deliveries with their bantam chickens hanging out in the delivery van.
When Review turned up for this interview, we chatted under an open-air shed while the drenching rain tumbled down around us.
This is only a recent addition, Watson explains, they used to sit in the poly-tunnel when it got really bad.
And that’s the reality, often working in sodden clothes, with fingers numb from the cold and an aching back up to 15 hours a day six or seven days a week.
Hard work? Yes. But definitely worth it.
“I was a bit unsure when we started because I was worried about the amount of work and it being our sole form of income,” Watson explains.
“But it’s the best job in the world. We establish meaningful connections with restaurants and we’re excited to see things growing really well.”
The rain stops briefly and we shoot some photos among the terraced garden.
There’s everything from edible weeds like the delicious lemon-flavoured lamb sorrel, to radishes, carrots, turnips, beetroot, zucchinis, cucumbers and potatoes.
Diners in top-end restaurants are enjoying broadbean leaves, radish leaves, purple cherokee tomatoes and Chinese artichokes that taste like a water chestnut but look like a witchetty grub.
“There’s a sense of creativity,” Watson says. “People are looking at plants in a non-conventional way.
“People are excited about eating broadbean leaves rather than broadbeans.”
The couple also manage some pre-existing berries on site, and have cultivated their own cute little alpine strawberries, just 2cm in length.
Epicurean Harvest supply top-end restaurants like Bennelong and Quay, Sepia, Rockpool, Bently and Moon Park in Sydney.
Their micro-vegetables and edible weeds are often used on degustation menus containing five to 12 dishes, or small plates suitable for sharing.
“If we have an understanding of how they [chefs] construct their dishes, then we can understand how to harvest for them,” Watson says.
The couple delivers to Sydney twice a week, only picking produce when it’s ripe, rather than allowing it to ripen in cool storage. Potentially it’s landing on a plate just 24 hours after it’s been in the ground.
The organic produce is grown without using chemicals or pesticides. They occasionally give plants a help along with a seaweed mix, but the healthy garden is mostly managed by regular crop rotation and keeping surrounding grass cut.
Epicurean Harvest’s produce can be purchased locally at Littleton Stores and the Native Kitchen and Bar in Lawson. They also supply several Mountains restaurants – Ashcrofts and Vesta in Blackheath, Darley’s in Katoomba and 1923 in Wentworth Falls.
Supplying 25 restaurants in total, they’re at capacity on their small lease. The long-term plan is to own their own patch but finding land that’s affordable within delivery distance of Sydney is no easy task.
But that’s tomorrow’s worry. At the end of a long day, the couple like nothing better than to head home with their two dogs and enjoy a dinner of freshly roasted vegetables or hearty vegetable soup flavoured with marrow bones.
“Nothing beats a grilled zucchini that’s been picked three hours before. You eat it and it tastes like zucchini, not wet cardboard,” Watson says with a smile.
