Hand to Ground

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Hand to Ground

Hand to Ground is the journey of Alex and Emily Sims and their young sons Reuben and Beren from city life to raising a regenerative farm in country Vic.

Welcome to Hand to Ground,

Our blog (www.handtoground.com.au) is where we hope to share our journey as a young family living sustainably. A life that is faith-enriched, organic, down-to-earth and honest. A life where beauty is found as much in the grubby feet of a child as in the golden glimmers of a rising sun. In practical terms that means learning from scratch how to farm regeneratively, keep

livestock humanely, grow fruits and vegetables organically, keep honey bees, and prepare whole-food meals. We will simplify our lives, be creatively thrifty, celebrate the arts, encourage community and have fun! We entered into the regenerative farming sphere through an internship on Taranaki farm in Woodend, Victoria. Our blog documents our immersion in Taranaki’s unique vision for healing earth and community (alongside producing exceptional meat and eggs!) We now are in the process of raising our own farm in Baynton, Victoria. We hope to show you as much as we can of our transition from city to farm life through photography, film, reflection and the odd recipe and tutorial. We want to do this as followers of Jesus, accepting His companionship on this journey of learning how to be caring stewards of His creation, and to give more than we take. We believe our passion to do this is no accident. We think we have been wired to live with imagination, to explore the creative potential of the everyday, and to find beauty and meaning in everything, even when it’s hard. We value relationships and connection, and hope that each member of our family will grow and flourish along the way.

29/04/2026

Headlong back into forestry. First stop, remove all woody weeds…

10/03/2026

Iron and Wine is off the bucket list, and now on the must not miss list.
Date was pretty cool, too.
Love you, babe.

20/02/2026

GROW FEST!! Continuing with our new focus on collaboration, Rock House has opened up one of our more problematic paddocks to become a demonstration paddock for the Grow Festival. I’ve been a bit lacking on the promos (better job next year, Alex!😬) as I’ve been battling the shingles and pushing to get the paddock ready for the cows to be on site for a live demonstration! They all performed beautifully for the crowd and was a delight to see so many familiar faces. It was a real joy to see so many people networking, learning, sharing and celebrating so many facets of this regenerative agriculture movement. Here’s to seeing it go from strength to strength!
Congratulations to .r.lamb and the rest of the team for a great day. Many thanks for all the work that went into the day and for getting out in the paddock to help thump in those Kiwitech posts and roll out some poly pipe!

09/02/2026

A misty morning for once. 12mm of rain has sent some much needed refreshment. We jarred 4mm for the entirety of January. So dry. And with the rain came chickens! In keeping with this season of collaborations we are bringing on the eggs. In partnership with .farm and , is proud to be hosting their first flock!!
We sold the egg business to Justine late in 2022. It soon became apparent it would be a great opportunity to run the chooks on Rock House under new management. When Gordon came on board with the Rock House farmer community it made sense to give the chooks a boost with some more farmer power. And to top it all off, the first flock has arrived from ! I remember Loz chiming in as a possible buyer when we were originally selling up the eggs. How serendipitous that her chookies have now made their home on Rock House! Every thing seems to be coming full circle to build up a strong farming community here at Rock House, which has been my dream all along… !!
I see no more hopeful a future for agriculture than communities of farmers and producers working closely together to bring forth health and abundance on farm and in the wider community. Cheer to that!

09/01/2026

Stay safe, VIC!

14/11/2025

Really smashed that one out of the park, Ai!

13/11/2025

Good grief, this season! I’ve been told by those more knowledgeable and wiser than myself, that following a drought the land will bounce back with more apparent vigour. This spring is so far, confirming it. Furthermore, I’ve also been learning that somewhere around the 6-9 month mark the root exudates of pasture species changes from sugars to fats. This crossover from sucrose to lipids intensifies the rate at which carbon is captured and stored in the soil by pasture! Another reason for giving our paddocks as long a rest as we can manage. In this case, 290 days. Hopefully next time round it will be longer!

01/11/2025

Joining is underway.
I’m having a good feeling about this season. Plenty of green grass ahead of us, the heifers are the best I’ve seen them, everyone is looking well fed and content… and the bulls are working hard from the get go! Here we go again.

31/10/2025

What a sensational day for tree planting! Here’s to our next collaboration on Rock House Fram with Wood 4 Good. A project that’s been in the making for the last 5 years. We first talked to about the potential for trees on Rock House, and it looked promising. Flash forward to now and Ben is kicking us off with our first planting. His team did a fantastic job of getting seedlings in the ground, clearing up gorse and contesting rabbitat. 37mm dropped after we finished soil prep, seedlings in the ground with hopefully a decent drop of rain coming on Monday. Things are looking very favourable! Thanks to Seb and Ben and the Wood 4 Good team. Here’s to sustainable and regenerative agroforestry!
For those interested in species:

Yellow Box: Eucalyptus melliodora
Blue Gum: Eucalyptus globulus
Swamp Casuarina: Casuarina glauca
Strap Leaf Casuarina: Casuarina equisetifolia
Black Wattle: Acacia mearnsii
Black Wood: Acacia melanoxylon
Bulloak: Allocasuarina luehmannii

24/10/2025

Got out the big toys this week. You may have picked up… ! We’re planting a forest. Soil is now prepped, so on with the seedlings. This will be a long-term project where we hope to raise trees for timber while maintaining a forestry ecology that is integrated with the wider farming operations. Agroforestry is something that’s been on my mind for years. It’s great to see things coming together! 2 hectare down, 18 more to go…!

Address

Baynton, VIC
3444

Website

http://www.handtoground.com.au/

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