chefs of the Mornington Peninsula

 The food on the table at Mornington’s Wildgrain was still growing in a garden in Dromana just a few hours earlier. One beautiful dish is a rich, creamy burrata topped with crisp, deep-fried broad bean leaves, double-podded broad beans and morsels of crunchy roasted hazelnut. Another features golden cauliflower florets dotted with pillows of cashew cream and little jewels of pomegranate, decorated with pale yellow broccoli flowers and dressed with soft apple mint leaves.

Every evening after dinner service, Wildgrain chef Leo Howard texts his vegetable order to grower Sean Flanagan. Sean also happens to be Leo’s boss and a former chef at the two-Michelin-starred La Gavroche restaurant in London. First thing the next morning, Sean picks the vegetables, washes them and packs them into trays before taking them to the restaurant in time for lunch service.

“I am now a grower who speaks chef,” says Sean with a laugh.

Sean also speaks sustainability with a high degree of fluency. In his kitchen garden at Torello Farm, he has turned his back on chemical pesticides and fertilisers.

“I work with the natural biome in the soil – bugs, fungi, worms and so on – to naturally increase soil carbon and fertility,” he says.

Green manure crops and mounds of compost add to the fecundity. And what about destructive pests? Sean has flowers, grown by his business partner as part of a new venture called Gentle Harvest. The dahlias, snapdragons and 20 other species of cut flowers attract not only pollinators, but also beneficial insects such as parasitic wasps and ladybirds that prey on pest species.

This season, the two acres under cultivation will supply Wildgrain in Mornington, Paringa Estate in Red Hill South, Moke, Flinders and Crittenden, just 200 metres away. It is set to be a bumper season.

The beds are being planted with four different varieties of zucchini, along with squash, pumpkins, heritage tomatoes, herbs, leafy greens and full-flavoured Albany strawberries.

“We’ve had a wet winter, and with the warmth of spring, our little farm is about to erupt into life.”

Customers wanting to try Sean Flanagan’s Gentle Harvest produce and flowers can buy directly from Torello Farm.

Wildgrain 1 Blamey Pl, Mornington