'Just plant more seeds and keep going': the couple who ditched corporate life for growing greens

Callum and Amanda McLean are one year into developing the 12-acre McLean Farm which feeds their young family, and provides a living from selling salads at a local market.

A stint working on a homestead and the work of Taranaki-based bio-intensive gardening educator and restoration grazing consultant Jodi Roebuck inspired Callum McLean to look at the possibilities offered by small-scale farming he told Summer Times.

“That's mostly just by focusing on high profitable crops and stuff that people really like to eat that you can produce week on week,” he says.

They grow, depending on the season, a salad mix with up to seven different varieties of leaves.

“We're still in our first year, so we're still developing, but our key focus is the salad greens because that really brings the customers back every week.”

The couple lease 12 acres of land, which was purchased by the family farming business, McLean says. 

“We've got 4 acres of native bush and about 6 acres of sweeping dips that I graze with cattle. And then I've got about an acre and a half of flat land that we use for our gardens.”

The land where they grow the micro greens was levelled to make it suitable for garden beds, he says. Being in a high rainfall catchment on the west coast means water management is key.

“The soil is fairly free draining, but it doesn't really matter how free draining your soil is. We get so much rain that eventually you'll just saturate and you need to get rid of the water.

“So it was a watershed exercise, trying to look at where the water's going and trying to make sure we're not making any extra flood issues.”

The McLeans grow in a large commercial greenhouse, allowing for year-round production.

“At the moment we've got 20 beds in production, and I've got space to do 80 in total.”

The staple crops they grow for their mixed salads are mizuna, baby leaf mustards, baby kale and two or three varieties of radishes.

Microgreens, he says, are a “powerhouse when it comes to health.”

“They're full of nutrition and because the seed is only just recently germinated, all of those nutrients are right there in the plant ready to be eaten.”

Neither Callum nor Amanda had a background in horticulture but his previous life in aviation design and engineering has proved useful in the new venture, he says.

“I've had a lot of practical skills and process engineering skills, quality assurance… and I've been able to bring all that into the farming space so we've got something that runs, fairly, like clockwork.”

The soil is kept healthy, fed by inputs from the farm, he says.

“I have six to seven acres of pasture, which we cut once a year for bailage, we compost a lot of that. But then we also raise four to five beef cattle and then when it times to harvest those, all of that waste, I then compost.

“So I'm able to take beef waste, silage, chicken manure from our chickens and then all that becomes part of the compost.”

Amanda, a former teacher, home schools their two children and works on the farm too.

“We like to say we’re doing everything for ourselves. So, it's not just the food from a self-sufficient perspective. It's how we raise our family. Yeah, just our outlook on life is trying to be self-responsible.”

Once a week they harvest, wash and bag what’s been grown and take it to the Paraparaumu Beach market, and the business is growing steadily, he says, selling up to 200 premixed bags a week.

“At the moment, we're covering costs. But I'm only at probably a quarter of my potential when it comes to production. I've got a lot of good market signals. Everyone tells me how good the product is.”

It hasn't all been plain sailing, he says, and admits there have been some crop failures to contend with.

“Sometimes it can be heartbreaking when you put everything into something and it just doesn't work out. But I've learned to realise that you're part of a bigger picture, just plant more seeds and keep going.”