How Alice and Pete are living their dream on their Toowoomba 'farmstead'

They say food brings people together, so it’s no surprise that Alice and Pete Johnson attract a friendly community around them wherever they live.

Their first home, a little wooden cottage in Toowoomba, may have been small but they turned every bit of backyard into somewhere they could grow things and had “a great little community” of neighbours wanting to see what they were up to.

In July 2020, the couple went bigger. They purchased two hectares of land in the fertile high country north of Toowoomba at Kleinton, to start growing enough food to feed themselves and share with others too.

“Ever since Pete and I have been a couple, it was always a dream of ours,” says Alice.

Pete, who works in agriculture, has grown veggies since he was a child. And Alice, self-described “Brizzy girl from the city”, says Pete’s love of the land has rubbed off on her.

After a lot of hard work and saving, they now have the right property to do it.

Named Red Ridge Farmstead by the couple, their land was once part of a larger broccoli farm. Their four-bedroom house, an extended “classic old-style ’60s farmhouse”, sits on a ridge with views towards the Bunya Mountains.

The term “farmstead” was chosen because it encapsulates what the couple aims to do.

“We adopted it from the American terminology,” Pete explains, “where farm-steading is where you grow food for yourself, and then whatever you have left over you try to sell or give away to other people.”

After planning, ploughing and planting, the couple has grown potatoes, heirloom pumpkins, sunflowers, corn, zucchini and beetroot. They also have citrus trees, berries and a herb garden.

“It’s not big enough to be a farm, it’s only on five acres. What we’re trying to do is use what land we have and make the most of what we’ve got,” says Pete.

It’s early days, and they’re still working out exactly how much they can produce, but the next step will be to sell the excess at markets or a roadside stall.

For now, it’s the lucky people around them who receive the fresh surplus. That was a kindness they talked about offering, even in the planning stages.

“We always said that when we eventually got our farm, the first big season of food we grew we’d give away,” Pete says. “It’s a big thank you to all of our friends and family that have supported us through open houses and looking at land blocks and have come to help harvest, come to help plant, come to help weed.”

When Pete and Alice talk about friends helping out, they’re not kidding – it’s literally a hands-on, elbows-deep situation.

“When we started with our first crop, which was the potatoes, we did that all by hand,” Alice says. “I definitely learned a lot in that process!”

Good friends from town came to help with the harvest, bringing their children to get stuck into it too.

“That helps with the workload, that’s for sure,” Pete says. “It’s good for kids to realise where things come from. So many people don’t see that side of things.”

Alice says “everyone who comes and visits takes a whole bag of potatoes with them”.

Their neighbours in Kleinton also receive lots of freshly grown veggies, which Alice jokes is to say “thanks for putting up with us”. There’s a little bartering community along their street, where everyone seems to agree that local is best.

“It’s nice to know where things are coming from, to know where it’s been grown,” Pete says.

The Johnsons receive fresh honey from one neighbour, chicken and duck eggs from another, and the neighbour opposite repairs their tractor in exchange for pumpkins.

That tractor is ‘Frankenstein’, also known as Frankie, and is the original tractor from the broccoli farm.

“Every time this property has been sold, that person has inherited that tractor,” Pete says. “It’s cool. It’s also pretty old and rickety.”

They have lots of plans – they want to get organic certification, buy some chickens, invest in a new tractor, and perhaps even hold events at the property. Alice’s sister recently held her wedding at the farmstead and, with the shed decked out with fairy lights, the couple saw how beautiful it could be.

“It was really lovely,” Alice says. “After hosting that wedding, I think we’ve proven to ourselves we can do it.”

As always, they will work slowly and steadily towards their goals. Running a farmstead offers proof every day that good things take time.

“It looks lovely in the photos, but there’s still all the stuff you have to do in the background,” Pete says. “You’ve still got to mow all the time, you’ve still got to maintain things, you’ve still got to keep an eye on water, pests and diseases.”

Alice agrees. “It’s a lot of work. We work full-time jobs, and keeping up this farmstead is kind of a full-time job in itself.”

Still, the Johnsons won’t be heading back to suburbia anytime soon.

“There were many times when I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, what have I gotten myself into?’” Alice admits. “But I love it now. I couldn’t ever go back.”

This article is part of a series about Australians who have created their dream homes and lifestyles, brought to you by Set For Life.