A Macedon Ranges lavender farm is doing things differently

Chin Chin Farm, in Victoria’s lush Macedon Ranges, is already an award-winning enterprise, but that hasn’t stopped the couple behind it always searching for an edge.

When Sonia and Stuart Whiteman moved from Melbourne to the Macedon Ranges 10 years ago, they didn’t know they’d soon own an award-winning lavender enterprise.

“We wanted to take our two young boys to a larger piece of land, for the boys to get the country experience,” Sonia said.

“We bought the property in terrible condition, full of cape weed, and where there wasn’t cape weed there was nothing.”

After buying a small flock of Aussie White sheep, they knew their 65ha (160 acres) wasn’t enough for a profitable venture in sheep, and so turned their heads to another pursuit.

“We looked at the AgriFutures website, and saw lavender was an emerging industry,” said Sonia.

“Lavender doesn’t need a lot of water or really great soil, and we knew our soil wasn’t great, so we started to do some organic remediation to begin the process.”

They opened Chin Chin Farm as a commercial lavender operation, while also selling prime lambs, growing bush foods and managing a healthy apiary of European honeybees.

After choosing Lavandula angustifolia as their first variety, chosen for its high grade of oil, the decision soon paid off, with the Whitemans winning an award for their lavender oil after just two years.

But following recent years of really wet weather, they knew something had to change as they sought for a more sustainable business model.

Stuart and Sonia Whiteman own and operate Chin Chin Farm, the only commercial lavender farm in the Eastern Macedon Ranges. Picture: Zoe Phillips

“Usually we would prune straight after harvest, but we were weeding 15,000 lavender by hand, and it just wasn’t sustainable,” Sonia said.

“So after the harvest last year, we let the weeds and grass stay, threw calcium and organic fertiliser over the patch and just left it.

“We thought let’s not interfere with it and see if it can regenerate itself.

“The soil is certainly looking a lot healthier than it did last year, and the rain would have just washed away all the regenerative work that we had done anyway, so it’s really rewarding to see the soil biology bouncing back.”

Stuart and Sonia are constantly searching for improvement. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Their constant search to be better has seen them employ another uncommon technique, in not pruning the lavender before winter, helping it ward off frost and snow.

“We certainly did see some great results from that, and we have met another grower who thought they survived the frost because of this strategy,” she said.

“It’s definitely early days in terms of what we are experimenting with, but we want to maintain our regenerative way of growing, so we’re trying a lot of different ways to keep the operations sustainable.”