Autumn is the time for apple pies, bowls of soup with freshly baked bread and hot scones slathered in butter and jam made from seasonal fruit. We caught up with three of the best food producers on the Mornington Peninsula to see what bounty they have for us.

Ross Arnott has some of the best soil for growing vegetables in the state. On his 65 hectare farm at Boneo he has a strip of dark, rich, free draining earth perfect for growing extremely tasty shallots and parsnips. But for over forty years Ross has been carefully saving seed from the plumpest, chunkiest pumpkin from each season. His pumpkins, which are being harvested now, have a distinguished barrel shape with pale yellow/orange skin and deep orange flesh. “I love to roast my butternuts alongside a Sunday roast,” says Ross. “But I am also rather keen on a butternut pumpkin scone.”  Ross sells his pumpkins to top retailers across Melbourne while down here he has teamed up with his next door neighbour Richard Hawkes from Hawkes Farm (661 Boneo Road, Boneo) who keeps a regular stock.

Out on Stumpy Gully Road, Philip Shepherd and his son Mitch are in their orchard busy picking apples. “We have 7 500 trees with fruit that ripens from late summer to late autumn,” says Philip. “Varieties like Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith, Pink lady, Kanzi, Bravo and Sundowner.” The father and son team are known for producing full flavoured fruit that is harvested when the apples have reached their optimum texture and quality. They sell their fruit to a handful of top retailers on the Mornington Peninsula including Torello Farm; Dromana, High on Fruit; Hastings and Benton’s Rise Farm, Mornington. The Shepherds also have an old-fashioned farm gate, more a green shed, where canny shoppers can buy freshly picked fruit and the occasional bag of perfectly edible seconds. (920 Stumpy Gully Road, Tuerong).

A few kilometres away in the Tuerong Valley is Tuerong Farm. It is the only bakery in the nation where the grains are grown and milled on-site. Jason Cotter and Emma Hicks specialise in older varieties of wheat selected for their ability to grow well and ripen fully in cooler wetter climates such as the Mornington Peninsula. They bare names like Rouge de Bordeaux, Reynard and Garland 1109. In the new bakery they make a range of beautifully shaped and decorated sourdough loaves and specialty items like cheese and jalapeno bagels, slathered in melted cheese and spicy disks of jalapeno. Although large enough to be a meal in itself – the complexity of the flavour of the dough makes it too moreish to leave a crumb. The team also bakes beautiful lightly spiced and wonderfully dense fruit buns, decorated with a cross to celebrate Easter. Their flours are sold at the bakery, and selected food stores on the peninsula and beyond, and are milled regularly to ensure their freshness and full flavour. Home bakers love the Tuerong flours for the deep coloured crust and crumb they deliver to home baked bread and the rich flavour they give to cakes, especially when made with seasonal fruit.

By Richard Cornish