It all started with 3 mates chatting over a beer

It all started with 3 mates chatting over a beer

On a Sunday arvo sometime in 2012, the three of us — Sam Hollitt, Lachie Hollitt and me — were having a barbie out at my farm, when Sam started us talking about garlic.

 

Now, Sam was a real ideas man

He knew garlic was a high-value crop so being a bit of an entrepreneur, he’d tried growing some garlic in his backyard in Kingscote. After his harvest, he showed us the quality of the garlic, and we got to talking. And we realised that between us 3 amigos, we had all our bases covered. Sam was the instigator and the ideas man. Lachie was all about machine maintenance and had a horticultural background. And I had the land. So after a bit more talking, and a few more beers, we thought ‘let’s have a crack.’
 

2013 we started researching

We travelled to garlic farms in the mid-north of South Australia to check them out and see what we could learn. It was all looking good and we were keen to get some plants in, but unfortunately it would be a few years before that happened. Very sadly, Sam passed away in 2013 in a car accident. His brother, Lachie passed away the following year due to cancer. It was just too hard for me to think about doing anything at the time, so the garlic plan got put on the back-burner. But not forever.
 

In 2015, I planted my first garlic crop

KI Fresh Garlic wasn’t an overnight success, by any means, and we had a few pretty tough years in the beginning. But I was never tempted to chuck it in. I just kept having a crack. And the thought of how happy the boys would be to see it actually happen, helped keep me going. I reckon they’d be proud.

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