Gleann na Meala open day on Saturday 21 November

I’m really good at missing open days – I missed one at Mountain Creek Farm in early November, and I’ve always managed to be out of town or doing something else when Glenn na Meala has an Open Day. Glenn na Meala (which means “Valley of Honey” in Gaelic) is the farm that provides much of the produce at Choku Bai Jo, the farmers’ outlet shop in North Lyneham where we buy most of our fruit and veg (and Capra goat cheese, and Shangai Yulin tofu, and Li Shen mushrooms, and Homeleigh Grove olive oils – here’s a list of the producers they stock.)

So I thought I’d let locals know that the Pentony family who run the farm and shop are having an open day on this Saturday, 21 November from 4pm, which will have tasting, tours and talks by Dave Pentony and other local producers.

We were lucky enough to spend last Sunday afternoon there, as Owy plays on an indoor cricket team with Ben Pentony who put on a do for the team and the 7 young Japanese people who work at the farm on a farm stay system. (A three month stint during their 12 month working visa gives them the right to stay in Australia for another year; they work in the gardens and receive board, accommodation and fierce ping-pong tournaments.)

You couldn’t have a succesful time with farm stay workers unless you liked the life of having a bunch of people around; the Pentonys obviously do, with most of the travellers extending their time on the farm. Hideko Pentony, farm den mother, is Japanese too, and makes an effort to help the kids understand Australian culture – things like entertaining friends and home and not double-dipping! (Sadly I missed taking a picture of the girls all photographing the blokes washing up after lunch.)

The party was in the big packing and hanging out shed; you can see the poly tunnel greenhouses in the back of this photo:

I went for a wander down to the greenhouses (which increase water efficiency and reduce loss to pests and environmental factors).

It was stinking hot, well over 30 degrees and Dave warned me it was probably near 50 in the tunnels – but it was worth it to smell this much basil:

And all this too (I’ve labelled the photos if you enlarge the thumbnails; let me know which ones I’ve misidentified ):

Kids are made very welcome, and the several kids in attendance got A LOT of attention from the Japanese travellers. The farm is half way through their organic certifcation process (although they’ve been organic for a very long time) and there’s a feeling of safety that kids aren’t going to getting into any nasty chemicals when they go exploring:

(he was searching for a ping pong ball – you’ve never seen a 7 year old be more impressed with his new found ability to slam a shot through).

Back in the shed are the big sinks where all the produce for the shop and stalls at the EPIC and Southside Farmers’ Markets are triple washed. The salad mixes are spun dry in giant lingerie bags in washing machines – I saw the bags line drying when we got there and for a moment thought that the Japanese girls wore REALLY big pants ;)

We got to eat one of the property’s sheep, cooked for five hours to unbelievable tenderness. Fortunately there are two big barbeques in the shed so there were plenty of veggies too – and Ben worked in flash gastropubs in the UK for several years and made some beautiful salads, including a killer caprese.

That’s Ben in the orange shirt, and the back of his dad Dave. Owy isn’t pulling a face there, he’s got a mouth full of lamb which he’s pretending he didn’t snaffle. And here’s everybody else getting into it:

I would really recommend a visit to Glenn Na Meala. We are so lucky to have local, organic produce of this quality, and to have a family so committed to bringing good food to us outside the stoopermarkets.

And don’t miss giving the extremely congenial farm dog Rex a pat – he’ll be waiting for one:

How to get to Glenn na Meala:

The farm is about 20 minutes drive from Canberra; travel down the Barton highway to Hall, turn left onto Wallaroo Rd, after about 3.5 kms turn left onto Gooroomon Ponds Rd, follow for 2.5 kms, go past an equestrian centre with prancing horse statues on the right and the farm is on the left. Parking is limited, so try and find a friend to carpool with.