5. Good Organic Gardening - September-October 2016 AvxHome.in

GARDENING FOLK | Kay & Mark Delahunt
The Delahunts have planted
100 truffle-inoculated oak trees
black
gold
Home growers Kay and Mark
Delahunt try their hand at truffles
Words & photos Erina Starkey
In the north of NSW, on the slopes
of the Great Dividing Range, lies the
historic gold-mining village of Nundle.
Comprising just a small handful of
homesteads spread widely over grazing hills
and farmland, the town has developed a
strong homegrown culture and no wonder.
On weekends, fruits and vegetables are
bartered in the street while seeds are
donated and exchanged from the local library.
Kay and Mark Delahunt run the local
antique shop, a heritage-listed Art Deco
building filled with old wares and fine china.
“We’re very strong on recycling,” says Kay. “In
many ways the antique business is a form of
recycling itself.”
Kay and Mark moved into their Nundle
cottage some 16 years ago. “It was on a very
small, very dry and very bare block of land,”
says Kay. “The first thing we did was to plant
trees everywhere. The small block now has
more than 30 trees on it, our favourite being
a Ginkgo biloba tree that was given to us as a
wedding present.”
They were just running out of places
to plant when the opportunity came up to
spread onto the block next door. “For years
we would look out from our deck at that
block and plan what we would do with it if
it was ours. We couldn’t believe it when the
opportunity became available. It was literally
a blank canvas with just a few carob trees,
pecans and she-oaks around the perimeter.”
After much consideration, they decided
to use the two-acre (0.8 ha) block to start a
small truffière. “I’m not sure why we decided
to grow them. I think it is the challenge of
achieving something that is a bit out of the
ordinary and that has a higher degree of
difficulty,” says Kay.
While the hot summers and heavy
32 | Good Organic Gardening