Karen and Marty are living what many would consider the Australian dream. Wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of Sydney, the pair bought an acreage property in Sedgefield on the outskirts of Singleton.
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Not content with simply making a tree change to live the quiet country life, the entrepreneurial couple had a vision for their new plot of land; a lavender farm.
But it wasn't the rows of purple flowers that they were after, it was their own supply of lavender oil to support their growing side business of creating their own therapeutic balms for Marty's physiotherapy patients in Sydney.
"My patients were sick of smelling like a gym locker room," Marty said.
"So I asked Karen if she could make something that smells decent."
After a bit of trial and error, and regularly tweaking the formula, Karen and Marty settled on lavender oil as the perfect ingredient for the balms, which quickly became a success with the patients.
"It was quite a success and I've been doing that for about five years now," Karen said.
"So we thought making our own essential oil and using it in a product would be absolutely fabulous. Plus the scent, obviously, it's just so beautiful.
"Everyone kind of loves it at the clinic, and I love gardening, we thought let's just do it. With COVID and all the lockdowns that kind of gave us the motivation to do it now rather than wait until we're 60 and retiring, because by then we're probably not going to have the energy."
Not having a background in agriculture also factored into their choice to grow lavender as they believed it would be a more manageable undertaking than livestock.
"We don't come from a family of farmers or have any experience or knowledge of farming at all," Karen said.
"We wanted to use the land but we wanted to find something manageable that we could learn a little bit about on the go, and we'll still be learning for quite some time."
While they settled on lavender as a manageable crop for themselves, there was still a steep learning curve for the couple in their first foray into commercial farming. Marty said extensive planning and research had been key in overcoming the many challenges along the way.
"It's been a bit of an interesting journey and whilst Karen and I did the research and knew what to do, we're novices in the game. We're not pretending we're experts or anything like that," he said.
"I think planning is the key, not just from a financial perspective but just literally the nuts and bolts of what you're going to do."
After doing their research and deciding to take the plunge into the world of lavender farming, Karen and Marty planted their first 8,000 seedlings over the Easter long weekend earlier this year.
After the hard work of soil preparation and improvement, planning out the rows and planting each seedling by hand, Karen said it was a "huge sense of relief" to see their fledgling lavender crop coming together after battling inclement weather for most of the year.
"You can see why farmers are always talking about the weather," Marty said.
While it will take nearly two years for the lavender to reach full maturity, the field will see its first blooms this spring. In the meantime, Karen and Marty have opened their doors to welcome guests on Airbnb, part of their plan to ensure their business was sustainable and able to sustain itself while waiting for the crops to mature.
"Because it takes such a long time to see some sort of return, we thought we might just start something on the side," Karen said.
"We thought it might help because of all the costs involved in improving soil and the plants and the equipment needed, two years is a long time to wait to see something come back from it.
You can see why farmers are always talking about the weather. We found that out big time.
- Marty, Wine Country Lavender
"Plus I also love a little bit of baking and all that. So I thought it all kind of comes together, you know, with the breakfast and the homemade bread and brownies. It was quite a success with the recent guests we've had."
Setting up the Airbnb side of the business meant they needed a name to be able to promote themselves to potential guests, which Marty said ended up being the easiest decision of the entire process.
"We figured 'Wine Country Lavender', because we take the Wine Country Road exit when we're coming up through Branxton," he said.
"It fits the area, we wanted to stay true to the region but we also wanted to be a little bit different rather than just naming it 'Hunter'. We're no great marketing experts, we started with no name and no idea what we were going to do and we figured it would just happen organically."
Welcoming guests has also given Karen and Marty the chance to support other producers in the Upper Hunter who they said have been essential in helping to establish their lavender farm. If they could offer any advice to somebody looking to set up their own small scale farm, it would be to build a community network.
"Don't try and be an expert in everything," Marty said. "Be a part of the local community and communicate with those people in your local area. They are the ones that really can help you and we've had tremendous help, even from our neighbours."
