About Us

Mt Alexander Fruit Gardens is run by Katie & Hugh Finlay. Katie is a third-generation Harcourt orchardist. She and her husband Hugh run the orchard. Katie's dad Merv still lives and works part time on the farm, growing all the trees Katie & Hugh plant on the farm.

Katie and Hugh have been running the orchard since 1998, both coming to it from non-farming careers, though Katie grew up on the orchard and Hugh worked for some time on farms in Western Australia and the Middle East. Before returning to the farm Katie owned her own business in Melbourne. Prior to his life as a fruit grower, Hugh had spent the previous sixteen years roaming the globe as a travel writer. As insurance against bad years - climate change and drought are very real - Hugh now also works part time as a consultant editor for a development organisation.

They took to farming like the proverbial ducks, enjoying the physical side of their work as well as the many challenges it presents. They enjoy learning from the wisdom and experience Merv shares with them, and combining this with organic farming practices. Farming organically has led to a greater interest in biological farming, and their core practice is to feed the soil by using compost and compost tea. The biology in healthy soil (good fungi and bacteria) make it possible for the trees to gain all their nutrients from the earth rather than from artificial fertilisers.

They take the stewardship of the land seriously, and have started a revegetation project that creates a wildlife corridor from the Mt Alexander Regional Park, which borders the property on the eastern side, through to remnant vegetation on the western side of the farm.

Katie and Hugh decided to keep the farm to a manageable size by planting small amounts of a large number of varieties. Moving away from a monoculture (where a large amount of one crop is grown) to widely diversified plantings has many advantages: it spreads the harvest more evenly over a longer period, no one variety ever poses too big a job; it spreads the risk; it reduces disease pressure across the whole property; and it means that most varieties can be picked, sold, and eaten when they are at their peak.

Hugh and Katie recently discovered via the Harcourt Historical Society that in diversifying the plantings they have unwittingly returned the property to a very similar state to its original plantings, over 100 years ago. The property was owned by WL Williams and sons, who began planting orchard in the 1880s. By 1909 they had an orchard or ‘garden’ of 60 acres, making them Harcourt’s largest fruit growers. They grew peaches, nectarines, apples and cherries, with a great deal of success.

Hugh and Katie are active in their local community. Hugh is a member of the Harcourt Landcare group. He is also a member of the Harcourt Water Services Committee, which has input into Coliban Water's reconfiguration of the valley's 150-year-old irrigation channel network - the lifeblood of the Harcourt fruit industry. He has recently also joined the committee of management of the Mt Alexander Sustainability Group, a community-based organisation in Castlemaine.

Katie represents local fruit growers on the Harcourt Applefest committee which runs an annual festival to celebrate the local apple industry. She is also the secretary of the Harcourt & District Fruit Growers Association.

Hugh and Katie have five children aged between 15 and 21, who are all connected to the farm and are showing an increasing appreciation of our rural lifestyle and a first-hand connection to where their food comes from. Some of them even work for us during the fruit season (if we pay them!). Two of them are studying permaculture, so who knows, we may have a farmer in the next generation after all. (Most of the photos on the website were taken by Hugh's daughter Ella.)