A young boy is feeling empowered by growing his own fruit and vegetables in the face of a medical diagnosis.
Coen Buck-Roberts' family has been busy growing and consistently selling out of their chemical-free produce and eggs at the weekly Sunday Iceworks market since moving to a farm on the outskirts of Lakes Entrance eight months ago.
"It's pretty exciting selling all of the produce every market day," Coen, 8, said.
Coen's mother Clara Buck started Coen's Farm Fresh Eggs and Produce in the hope it would encourage her son to connect and communicate with other people after his diagnosis as a four year old with level three autism.
"He's come a very long way since getting his service dog Turbo, but when we moved to this farm, I wanted to create something that allowed him to go and interact with the public as much as possible about things that interested him," she said.
In scenes reminiscent of the resourceful, pioneer times that carried Australia through to the post-war era of consumer convenience, the family have been busy cultivating their land with garden beds, nurseries and chook pens fashioned with salvaged materials.
They are also revisiting ways of creating a modest livelihood in East Gippsland's health conscious, eco-minded market, where pure, natural food — free of pesticides, chemicals and genetic modification — is not easy to source.
Family focus
Chomping away on a tomato, Coen said his family grew beans, lemons, capsicums, chillies, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, eggplants, pumpkins and watermelons.
"I used to not like potatoes or eggs but now I want to eat eggs every day and eat potatoes everyday too," he said.
He said the best way to get young children interested in eating and growing vegetables was to start with something small that they could watch grow, such as edible borage flowers.
He said looking after the chooks was his favourite job.
"I get to see the chooks and I get to do lots of work everyday and eat everything", he said
"I help clean out chicken pens, nesting boxes, collect the eggs, help do the garden."
Ms Buck said it was important for her children to know that not all food came from the supermarket and that they could always find vegetables in the garden to make a bowl of salad.
"I'm very lucky that Coen, especially given his autism, eats the way he does," she said.
"It's often an issue that parents of autistic people face.
"But he just loves his fresh fruit and vege and so does his brother."
Big brother Beau Buck-Mckimmie, 15, is responsible for much of the maintenance of the farm, building the farm's fixtures out of recycled materials and creating the food forest of native trees in the back paddock.
"The idea of the food forest is that the chickens can live underneath and keep themselves shaded while all the stuff falling from the trees they can eat, re-put into the ground and get the protein from it as well," he said.
"It's a lot of learning and a lot of trial and error. There's always something to do."
Empowering the community
The Buck family is set to host an open day on Saturday, March 25, as they expand their humble market trestle table operation into a community garden with a network of chemical-free growers.
"The idea of the open day is to get as many like-minded people as we can together that want to either grow their own gardens and potentially make some profit from their properties," Ms Buck said.
"More people are now understanding the value behind growing a small backyard garden, and also behind growing a community."
Having dealt with slugs, snails, green caterpillars, white moths and rats, she said the event would provide a space where chemical free growers could exchange tips and natural solutions on everything from composting to managing pest infestations.
'I want to build a good community of people around my children, I want to see community working together, bartering, trading produce and growing together," Ms Buck said.
She said she was keen to build a network of growers.
"People can make some money out of their properties because they'll be paid for what they grow, as well getting veggie boxes available to the local public sooner rather than later," she said.
