Heather Nicholls came out of retirement when she took over south-west Victoria’s first pick-your-own strawberry farm 10 years ago. Today, she has no regrets about her decision, even making time to mentor new producers. RICK BAYNE has the story.
Heather Nicholls describes Timboon’s Berry World as iconic, which seems apt for a small farming business that has been around for more than 55 years.
South-west Victoria’s first pick-your-own strawberry farm has survived fire and pandemics and when its future was under threat in 2020, the community rallied in support.
It looks like these strawberry fields could go on forever.
The farm was established 56 years ago by Alan and Joy Kerr and their children John and Fiona. The Kerrs, now in their 80s, still live in Timboon and were hands-on mentors when Heather and her family took over in November 2014.
Alan came from a dairy farming background and had a great interest in horticulture.
“He looked at what the district didn’t have and wondered what might be good for Great Ocean Rd tourists,” Heather said.
The answer was a strawberry farm.
When the Kerrs retired in 2014, Heather was also eight years into her own retirement. But as someone who describes herself as hyperactive, Heather wasn’t one for sitting still.
“When I was retired, I was doing a lot of long running, swims, gym workouts and working in the garden,” she said.
“I found myself talking to the chickens too much.”
The transition back to work wasn’t too hard, even if she had no previous horticultural experience outside of her own garden, which did at least include about 20 strawberry plants.
Originally from northern Western Australia, Heather and husband Geoff had been living in England and wanted to find a similar cooler climate. When their children visited Timboon and decided to stay, it became a family decision to invest in the strawberry farm.
“When my daughter Carissa and her son Tom moved here, it made sense to buy the strawberry farm and work it together,” Heather said.
Turning 70 this year, Heather has no regrets about rejoining the workforce.
“I believe in use it or lose it,” she said.
Although entering a new field, Heather had good back-up.
“Alan very kindly gave me a year of his life,” she said.
“I could call him with any question and he’d come here and see me if something wasn’t right. I probably wouldn’t have taken it on without that mentor.”
Today, Heather likes to continue Alan’s collaborative attitude and has opened her doors and shared her knowledge with new berry producers.
“There are a few of us around now but it was the only one in the area when it started,” Heather said.
The property covers about 20ha and each year has 1.5ha under fruit. Strawberries are still the cornerstone of the business, but there are some blackberries, new trials of raspberries and blueberries and an apple grove.
The apple grove was introduced with plans to make strawberry cider. The first attempts didn’t go to plan, but there’s a new brewery in town so they will try again.
Most income from strawberries is from pick-your-own, although some are sold at shops in Timboon and Port Campbell.
Custom is about 50-50 locals and Great Ocean Rd tourists. The season depends on sunny weather, but typically opens in October and closes in April.
The rest of the year is spent preparing for the next season.
An avid seeker of information, Heather has made a few changes over the past decade.
“Strawberries bring a lot of potential for fungal disease, so we clean the soil by solarising, using ryegrass and mustard seed, which is a natural fumigant,” Heather said.
“One of the major changes since I took over was using natural fumigants. We alternate the sites to keep the soil fresh and put out mustard seed and water it and plough it in and build up new rows to become next year’s strawberry field.”
She also changed the orientation of the rows – Alan went east-west, Heather goes north-south.
“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way, but I found the strawberries were ripening more on one side than the other and I could see some rows were healthy and others weren’t,” she said.
The realignment seems to be working well, especially this year where the dry conditions made for a good season.
Each year, Berry World has about 44,000 plants in the ground and they each produce 2kg to 3kg.
They’re planted by hand.
“We trim off the root system, dip them in fertiliser and then take them out and use a blade-like planting tool to plant them,” Heather said.
“It’s a simple process but there’s no automated way to do it.”
The biggest change under the new owners was opening the Berry Good Thai restaurant in December 2022. It came about after the former shed burnt down in January 2020.
“We had to decide if we’d rebuild or call it quits,” Heather said.
“We had a lot of pressure from the locals to continue, so we did. People from all over came to offer help. The community all around us was great.”
The new restaurant was built during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing staff members to remain employed during the shutdowns.
“We seriously considered closing but my Thai chef was picking strawberries and we decided to rebuild to keep them employed during COVID,” Heather said.
“There was a job for everyone. They stayed employed and that was important for us.”
Berry World has about 10 staff. Getting people to work away from the city is not easy, but the business provides accommodation and sponsors international staff.
Heather says you need to absorb knowledge to be a good strawberry farmer.
“We’re lucky in this era because I can Google everything and I have agronomists I can phone or I can ring another grower and they can give their best advice,” she said.
“Now we’ve been doing it so long, it’s pretty much routine.”