Meet the inspiring Gypsy Farmer, Kaycee Simuong.
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The 28-year-old female has decided to grow her own organic vegetables on a farm and write a blog about what she is doing.
Kaycee has 1093 followers on Instagram, 564 on Facebook and a impressive mailing list of 200 so far.
Passionate and full of life, you can hear the excitement in her voice when she speaks about her life growing her own vegetables on a farm, The Mandarin Bend, with her partner Tom Macindoe.
She has chosen a life on a farm in an era when many young people are leaving the land and heading off to the big cities to start their careers.
Kaycee hopes to inspire other young people to connect back with the land and start growing their own vegetables in the effort to achieve self-sustainability. She aims to educate other people about the joys and benefits of seasonal and organic eating through her blog.
“One of my goals in farming has been to reconnect people back to their food, so I thought it was important to share my journey and the realities of farming in a way to educate people. Farming is really involved though so it is very tough to find the time to write about what is happening,” Kaycee said.
She gave up her career in the field of environmental science, a job she found soul crushing and unsatisfying.
A three month internship at Transition Farm had Kaycee sold on the idea of growing her own food and she loved the whole self sustainable way of life she had been experiencing. Seeing a small scale profitable farm in action, she became excited and inspired to create her own.
Kaycee now lives 30 kilometres inland from Bowraville at The Mandarin Bend. Living there since March 2017, Kaycee and Tom have experienced a full year of farming the property and find Summer to be a real scorcher, for both them and the vegetables, with many succumbing to diseases in the hot humid weather.
Growing organic seasonal veggies, they are currently planting for autumn including broccoli, cauliflower, kale and cabbage. Sewing seeds for carrots, beetroot and greens such as bok choy, plus coriander and other herbs.
“Daily tasks include, weeding, seedling production, bed preparation, planting and harvesting.
“During summer we use the heat of the day to do inside jobs like admin or crop records, getting back out there when it cools down, while in winter we are working outside all day.
“We harvest twice a week, once for our shop and another for market on the weekend. We also have two pigs to care for.
“It’s rewarding knowing that I’m doing something worthwhile with my time, it’s the most important thing, growing and it’s so satisfying, being able to contribute this way to the community.” Kaycee said.
Read other features from Edition 2 of Rural Life magazine: