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RF: Xanthe, you said that cooking
started you on this adventure?
I fell into cooking when I moved to Canberra to do a post grad in gold and silver smithing, I needed to get some work on the side. I’d done waitressing and
was managing the conference centre restaurant at Silver Wattle on Lake George. I
found it was difficult to get good produce out there as we only made one trip in
a week (Silver Wattle is about 20mins drive from Bungendore). We needed
good lettuce mix and things like that so since I’d just bought this building and
it had a large block so I set about growing what I needed. I’d pick stuff before
I went to work and it was great.
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The X Gallery beside the Royal Hotel |
Xanthe's salt and pepper
shakers |
RF: How long have you owned this great
little building?
Seven years. I drove out one Sunday from Canberra, I didn’t know anyone in
Bungendore but I saw this building for rent and thought it would make a great
gallery. I was waiting for the agent to open the next morning and moved in that
day. I lived in it for a year and then bought it.
Out the back was a paddock of waist high grass, I’d never planted a garden
before growing up in Sydney apartments. I planted a peach tree in one corner
which is now massive and produces lots of fruit, I started one little plot and
then another. I was cooking all this time but felt there was not enough time
left for my art so I took the job at Lynwood gardening. I loved that.
RF: I remember walking in that garden at Lynwood, it was huge!
It was in the block at the back of the current carpark, and about the size of my
garden now. I landscaped it to bring some structure, put a big path up the
middle and a seating area at the back so people would wander through and stay
for a while. I loved that idea that people would see what they were about to
eat. I still have people who say “weren’t you that girl who used to work at
Lynwood? Do you remember me we had great conversation about…” (laughs) who I
can’t remember of course.
I loved it when there were kids who didn’t know how a
vegetable grew and you could see them wide-eyed. It’s something I’d like to do
here in a more formal way, have public access. There are people who have seen my
produce at the Harvest festival and come up to and say (hushed) “please, please
can we see your vegetable garden?”
When we had the official opening here I had a big marquee at the back and I’d
cleaned up the back garden and found that everyone was out there rather than in
the gallery (laughs).
I produce vegetables mostly for sale to Harvest, (the restaurant next door in
Royal Hotel) because I was seduced back to cooking there when my friends Tommy
and Marty (owners) started the new restaurant. I could pick what I needed. But
that restaurant just grew and grew so I’m now just back to supplying vegetables.
In winter there’s only a few things that we have but in a few weeks there will
be a lot.
RF: Tell me how you work with the chefs who use your produce
 When
the garden is growing, I go in and talk to the chef and see what they need and I
deliver sometimes twice a day. They’ve got a list in the kitchen of what’s ready
now and everything that’s coming. Because I have a cooking background I can say
to the chef, “are you going to turn up your nose at turnips because I won’t grow
them if you don’t use them.” We have long discussions about produce!
Harvest get first choice, then Eric at the Woodworks Café will take anything
I’ve got extra. The Beetle Nutt take some, I have some private customers then I
keep enough for me and my family and friends. The girl who does my book keeping
and things like that. (laughs) always good for a trade.
RF: So how do find time to do it all?
I find that it’s hardest when daylight saving ends because I can’t get out into
the garden when I close my gallery. I’m used to working until 5.30 and then
spending time in the garden until 9.00. At least in winter you can’t do early
picks when the lettuces are frozen so you’re forced to change your routine.
RF: Starting a garden in a place with
winter frosts tests your resolve!
 I
didn’t know that I would love it so much when I started, now I dream about
having a garden in say Queensland, that’s frost-free! Even Sydney that has
perennial chilli trees that never die! Massive big basil bushes and things like
that! But once I stopped trying to fight the seasons and worked with the
elements it was a lot easier.
I don’t bother covering things. I’d love a greenhouse or the tunnels that Joyce
and Michael have, but I just work with what I can get out of here.
Xanthe mentions Joyce (Wilkie) and Michael (Plane) who feature in RF Issue 2
in a short article on The case for Café gardens.
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