A few years ago, Jesse Clarke and his wife, Carly Hughes, moved back to his childhood home - a 50 acre farm in Phoenix Park where his parents still live.
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Jesse left his job as a teacher, started a life on the land, and never looked back. He wanted a change from working indoors all the time and was thinking of going back to university. His father, Peter Clarke, said to Carly "Why doesn't he come back to the farm and start a business?"
"It has always been something that I've talked about. When I was a kid my pop and I would grow grammas to sell and I'd help him with beetroot," Jesse says.
"Then Carly and I did a market stall down at Newcastle Farmers Markets, 10 years ago now. We did that while I was still working full time, and then, when I fully decided to come back here, everything fell into place.
"I was like, this is where I need to be."
He lived in the house he grew up in (his parents now live in a newer one on the property).
His parents have lived on the land for the past 40 years. Jesse has fond memories of growing up by the river. His father has grown everything you can imagine on the land.
"Before I was born, he grew things like cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower," he says
"They realised there was no money in doing that and it would cost them money to grow them.
"When I was really young they had five acres where they had huge big ponds growing yabbies.
"They were definitely way ahead of their time."
He remembers they grew mushrooms under the house, which is on stilts due to the floodplains. His father grew cucumbers and tomatoes in the hothouse during winter. Jesse's learnt a lot from him about land and soil management, native habitat and planting trees.
His father grows hay and pumpkins on 40 of the acres, and Jesse grows vegetables and experiments with permaculture principles on the rest.
They have a program for kids, Growing Future Farmers, and in December they opened a "paddock to plate" cafe, Hutch, on their property.
"Carly helps out on the farm when I need an extra set of hands," he says.
"She's a fantastic organiser, and she also looks after the Hutch cafe."
Carly is a dietician, so her passion is educating about healthy lifestyles, healthy eating, community and getting people together.
"It fits really well with the farming side," Jesse says.
Much of what Jesse grows is served in the cafe. At the moment it's a brunch menu, so they've got pumpkin pancakes, sweet corn fritters, served with rocket salad, and beetroot brownies.
Jesse's growing sebago potatoes. He says they are the best spuds you'll ever eat.
"They're a world away from the ones you'd buy from the shops, especially because they're grown organically with no herbicides sprays or artificial fertilisers," he says.
They have heaps of broccoli, cauliflower, wong bok, beetroots, silverbeet, kale and gai-lan
"Coriander and potatoes are my two crops I'm most proud of," Jesse says.
"You gotta grow coriander from seed. Don't transplant it and you've got to have good soil as it gets stressed really easily."
He feels he's at the very beginning of his permaculture journey.
"Permaculture is a way of utilisiing resources the best way that you possibly can, getting the most out of the resources," he says.
"That doesn't mean you're depleting the resources; you should be building and creating more and more."
He's developing a chicken tractor system, which makes his 30 chickens do the work for him while he's growing vegetables.
The chickens are rotated between hot house frames. They eat bugs and weed seeds, fertilise the soil and lay eggs.
He has two goats, brothers Gary and Barry.
"The permaculture thing is you're trying to get multiple uses out of one thing. Garry and Barry are weed control," he says.
"I'll move them around they'll eat down the grass so I don't have to do it, and then the second job is just being cute and cuddly."
Carley and Jesse are learning a lot and have definitely found their passion.
"Over the years, the farm here has gotten better and better," he says.
"My father has looked after it well.
"Now it's my turn and I want to do the same and make it even better"