Rachel Ward // Regenerative Farming, Small Farms, Nature and Creativity, Farmthru
Release Date: 11/25/2025
Baklava Old Fashioned, Dehydrator Season and We Answer Your Questions!
Avant Gardeners
We're drinking a Baklava Old Fashioned - Maddie had leftover baklava syrup (sugar, water, cinnamon, honey) and has turned it into an old fashioned with burbon, amaretto and a dash of bitters. Absolutely delish! Emily has scored herself the perfect harvest basket, and her benchtop is housing a hard-working dehydrator as she works through the abundance of nashi pears. Maddie delves into the good and the bad dahlia chat. We discuss tree peonies and mimosa hydrangeas before delving into some questions that you - our amazing listeners - have asked of us. The ones we get into in this episode...
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Rubie Gallagher // Gardening with a Disability, Starting a Micro Flower Farm, Dahlia Cuttings, Running Away From Home
Avant Gardeners
This week's guest is the delightful, talented Rubie Gallagher. Rubie is an illustrator and , who met Emily when she and her husband Max took a Calm Birth class ahead of their first child. After an accident in 2019, Rubie she spent time in rehabilitation at the Royal Talbot Rehab Centre in Melbourne which created. The two crossed paths there during Rubie's rehab. Since her accident, Rubie and her husband, along with some very helpful friends, have worked together to create Rubie's Flower Farm, a micro farm growing flowers for florists, DIY buckets and edible flowers out of Mount Rumney...
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A Hospital Stay, Writing Lists & South Sydney's Jacaranda History
Avant Gardeners
We are back, and we felt like drinking something tried and tested, so Emily's cracked a , Chenin Blanc. Emily shares an unexpected stay in hospital, and she's got a lot of thoughts about the paediatric ward 'sgarden (very topical as we've recently spoken to Nurse and Therapeutic Horticulturalist Steven Wells - ). Maddie interogates how Emily gets so many things done, so we go deep on lists. Emily's planting garlic and spending time in her outdoor bath. We're processing tomatoes. Maddie shares a story about South Sydney's jacaranda history, and a recent event at that looked oh so...
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Jac Semmler // Flower Power, Pivoting to Horticulture, Super Bloom, Writing Books, Poppy Hacks
Avant Gardeners
We are the founding members of the Jac Semmler Fan Club. This is the second time we've been lucky enough to interview Jac, celebrating the launch of what will become an absolute gardening book staple, . In this episode we answer a bunch of your questions, including -How and should I pivot to horticulture -How do I get my poppies to germinate -What are some surprising performers in the garden We talk about changing climate, bogan pronounciation of plant names, the amazing work Jac's doing at Super Bloom, and so much more. Before we get to that: Maddie and Em are drinking a dirty cacao...
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Op Shops, Toilet Paper & Plums Galore
Avant Gardeners
Emily & Maddie are back with so much chat this week. We go a little off topic, but that's pretty standard...right? We cover: Philodendron Shrub (not of the plant variety!) Spent flowers are self seeding Compost bins Proteas not opening Olive grove maintenance Drowning in Plums Different types of clematis - who knew! Emily is on the hunt for the perfect garden basket from op shops near and far. Next week we're so excited to be releasing our chat with the amazing Jac Semmler of Super Bloom!
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Steven Wells // Therapeutic Gardening, Downsizing, Churchill Fellowship, Gardener Folk
Avant Gardeners
Emily and Maddie were lucky enough to meet Steven in Victoria late last year, having followed his journey for a long time. Steven began his career as a nurse, before studying horticulture, with no intention of fusing the two. But he delved deeper into therapeutic gardens, gaining a Churchill Fellowship to help support research, and he started the Therapeutic Garden at the nearly 20 years ago, providing immeasurable benefit to patients, their families, friends and staff. Steven recently downsized from a much-celebrated garden in the Melbourne suburbs, Steven now has a lush veranda in the...
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Maddie + Em // Alpacas and New Neural Pathways
Avant Gardeners
It's a Maddie & Emily chat this week. Maddie is loving (despite calling the colour urine-esque) the White Blend and if you're in Tassie go book and wine shopping at Emily was creating new neural pathways and happened upon a great side-street garden stall. Win! We're lamenting the end of cherry season, but enjoying choc-covered cherries from a local stall. We're rolling (metaphorically, not literally) in peastraw and alpaca poo. Lettuce is ON! Emily has has success with a poppy (yes, just the one), and it's reminding her of her grandfather. Maddie's hollyhocks have popped and it's...
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Jo Thompson (UK) // Chelsea Flower Show, 6pm wines, Favourite Roses, Trypophobia
Avant Gardeners
Jo Thompson is one of the UK’s most celebrated garden designers, known for creating deeply romantic, naturalistic gardens that feel timeless, layered and full of atmosphere. Her projects span the UK and abroad - from wildflower meadows in the English countryside to rooftop terraces in New York and coastal gardens in Italy and Brazil. She’s a multiple award-winner at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, with several Gold medals to her name, and her designs - ranging from private landscapes to meaningful public projects - are widely admired. Beyond her design practice,...
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A notebook full of failures - Maddie and Emily chat!
Avant Gardeners
We're baaaaaack! And with a slightly new format. We're trying out one week where we release our chat (longer version), and the following week we'll release our guest interview. It means we can get episodes out weekly. We'll trial it and see. We've missed the podcast so it's awesome to be back. Emily has knocked it out of the park with a delicious mulberry bramble (gin, mulberry cordial from our friends' tree, blackberries, lime). Having taken more than two months off, we have so much to chat about. Including, but not limited to: Seed saving - calendula and platypus...
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Jodi Wilson // A Brain That Breathes, Soft Fascination, The Power of Pottering in the Garden, Books for you to read
Avant Gardeners
Jodi Wilson is a bestselling author of four books, a health journalist and postpartum doula. Several years ago, she and her family packed their lives into a caravan, and set off in search of adventure, and a more simple life. After two years on the road they put down roots in Tasmania. It is here where she’s embraced gardening, and written her most recent book, , out today. Jodi lives, writes and gardens with her partner and their four children on the land of the punnilerpanner people in north western Tasmania Before we get to this thought-provoking chat, Emily and Madeleine are...
info_outline~ This season of Avant Gardeners is proudly supported by Blundstone's new series WorkLife. Launching in November and perfect for gardening. Find your local stockist here. ~
Rachel Ward’s career began on screen, with standout roles in classics like The Thorn Birds before she turned her skills to directing acclaimed works including Beautiful Kate. In her sixties, Rachel's energy and focus shifted to regenerative agriculture, swapping film sets for fence lines and embarking on an ambitious overhaul of the beef farm her and her husband Bryan Brown had owned for thirty-odd years. Her brilliant documentary Rachel’s Farm captures this shift as Rachel moves into her soil-health evangelist era, charting her mission to restore land and the food system. Today, she continues that momentum through Farmthru, her paddock-to-plate project designed to disrupt how regenerative farm produce is made available to consumers.
Rachel lives, works and tends to her cattle on the land of the Gumbaynggirr people in the Nambucca Valley, New South Wales.
Before we get to Rachel's chat, Maddie and Emily are drinking Greek Frappe (metrio me gala) even though it's 9 degrees outside. Recipe from Philoxenia: A Seat At My Table by Kon Karapanagiotidis.
Emily is dreaming of abundance in the garden.
Maddie is going to try to make her own tomato powder by Lauren at Oaklea Veggie Patch.
They both visited good mate Pip Steele Wareham at The Garden at Moorfield and it was just like old times in that Pip was followed around by Maddie and Emily asking lots of annoying questions.
We visited CERES Brunswick and want to start our own version in Cygnet.
We're growing strawberries in pots and trying to get lots more creeping thyme in the garden (thank you, Connie Cao)
Maddie is thinning her fruit trees (thank you, Katie Finlay)
Rachel recommends:
We Are The Ark by Mary Reynolds,
The Creative Act by Rick Reuben,
The Call of the Reed Warbler by Charles Massy,
Deep Listening to Nature by Andrew Skeock
Healthy Land, Happily Families and Profitable Businesses by David W Pratt
The Soil Will Save Us by Kristen Ohlson,
Holistic Management by Allan Savory
Check our Rachel's new online-ordering, kerb pick up regenerative farm produce available at Farmthru.