G’day! I can’t believe we have finally made it. All of our favourite things that we love to do in one place.
My name is Cindy Cross and together with my husband Mark, we have opened a Farm Shop, Nursery & Cafe just outside of Apsley, a small town in Western Victoria.
We have renovated a near dead cottage built over 100 years ago into a rustic, country cafe and shop for our produce and preserves.
This building belonged to the Smith family and was purchased by my husband’s family in 1972. That dilapidated shed next to the house was the generator shed.
This cottage housed 8 children and 2 adults and in 1952, Grandma came to live and a small attachment was built onto the house. (Behind the generator shed) We found numerous newspaper articles under the linoleum. I am feeling rather spoilt with the size of my house when I look at this!
It’s looks a little different now.
We managed to keep the original roof, and outside walls and most of the inside wall and floors. They really built them to last in those days.
Funnily enough, the add on for Grandma, built in the early 50’s wasn’t built out of red gum and white ants had gone through, but not the main house.
In case you’re wondering, my husband is a jack of all trades and having a farm boy upbringing, has a knack for overbuilding things.
We opened a farm shop, nursery and cafe for a few reasons. We love to grow things and I love to cook!
We have over 100 different varieties of fruit trees under bird netting. Imagine a giant anti – bird avery! It’s not as expensive to build as you might think and to be able to harvest every fruit off every tree is an absolute triumph over the birds. We also have planted over46 varieties of citrus. I did not think there were this many varieties out there, but a collector I am and they are in and growing…….well most of them. These aren’t under bird netting because birds don’t really bother citrus.
We also have a 30 x 30 m vegetable garden. It was the first garden built shortly after we shifted in to our newly built house (also built by Mark) Before any ornamental thing was planted, I mean, really! we were surrounded by sheep in the middle of a paddock, 700 m off the road. This garden needed to be fenced off from the sheep, and the rabbits and the hares etc.
So we have an orchard, a vegie patch, and lots of amazing organic produce. I am in complete foodie heaven!
A selection from Summer 2010
My love of cooking was instilled by my mother when I was a young teenager. Her mother worked afternoon shift and when my mum came home from school, dinner was already cooked, so when she married Dad, she had no idea how to cook. Dad taught mum, ( he was a chef in the airforce for a little while) and mum made sure she taught her children.
One of the main reasons to open a cafe as part of our business was to have an outlet for all the cooking I love to do.
These days, it is so easy to open a box of premade everything for a cafe, and I am so against this, that I made a rule for my cafe. I will not open a box of premade anything! So every cake, cheesecake, cupcake, pie, pastie, frittata, etc, etc is made by myself, from scratch. I have to tell you that I am having a ball! The food changes all the time as the seasonal produce comes and goes. It’s so exciting. What am I going to make this week? I don’t know, let me go and have a walk in the garden! To me, this is how it should be. But so rarely is.
If you made it to the bottom of my first blog page, I thank you.
My contact details are thus:
Amber Ridge
1852 Wimmera Hwy Apsley Vic 3319
ph0355861384 Open Wed-Sun 10am – 4pm
I hope to see you in the future and I can feed you we can chat botanically or edibly!
Cindy Cross
Herb Master Class
amberridge3319 