A young boy is feeling empowered by growing his own fruit and vegetables in the face of a medical diagnosis.
Coen Buck-Roberts’ family has been busy growing and consistently selling out of their chemical-free produce and eggs at the weekly Sunday Iceworks market since moving to a farm on the outskirts of Lakes Entrance eight months ago.
“It’s pretty exciting selling all of the produce every market day,” Coen, 8, said.
Coen’s mother Clara Buck started Coen’s Farm Fresh Eggs and Produce in the hope it would encourage her son to connect and communicate with other people after his diagnosis as a four year old with level three autism.
“He’s come a very long way since getting his service dog Turbo, but when we moved to this farm, I wanted to create something that allowed him to go and interact with the public as much as possible about things that interested him,” she said.
In scenes reminiscent of the resourceful, pioneer times that carried Australia through to the post-war era of consumer convenience, the family have been busy cultivating their land with garden beds, nurseries and chook pens fashioned with salvaged materials.
They are also revisiting ways of creating a modest livelihood in East Gippsland’s health conscious, eco-minded market, where pure, natural food — free of pesticides, chemicals and genetic modification — is not easy to source.
Family focus
Chomping away on a tomato, Coen said his family grew beans, lemons, capsicums, chillies, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, eggplants, pumpkins and watermelons.
“I used to not like potatoes or eggs but now I want to eat eggs every day and eat potatoes everyday too,” he said.
He said the best way to get young children interested in eating and growing vegetables was to start with something small that they could watch grow, such as edible borage flowers.
