Our ORTO Cottage is gorgeous: it offers privacy or the chance to engage with us. We are a Cooking School & Regenerative Farm. We offer a tour of our property on arrival: opt out if you wish. We provide fresh eggs, home made bread, milk, coffee & seasonal herbs from our garden. Our beautiful summer wetland is perfect for swimming, fishing, reading a book. LGBTQI welcome! Book both listings: Orto One & Orto Two for a group of 4 . I look forward to meeting you. Arrivederci! Mara
The space
The Orto Farm House has six bedrooms, two of which are dedicated guest rooms with private entry & private bathroom. The Guest Rooms are called ORTO One and ORTO Two. Each Guest Room can be booked individually, if two couples are travelling together book both ORTO One and ORTO Two, but if one couple only, then book only one of the ORTO rooms as they appear as seperate listings.
The rooms are spacious with heating & cooling & views of Lalgambook.
You have access to a Guest Kitchen and Guest Living Area. The Guest Kitchen/living area has its own entry.
The kitchen has been lovingly furnished with found objects and furniture from vintage stores in our area. There is an oven and gas cook top, fridge, toaster, kettle and wood fired stove for heating with all firewood supplied.
A prairie/bee garden adorns the west and to the north the kitchen garden. We have planted thousands of young trees, wild flowers and native grasses.
There are four of us permanently living on the farm, myself and Ralf and our two girls Ahlia and Artemisia. We also often host international volunteer guests who offer us help on the farm in exchange for a home.
Our home and garden design is based on permaculture principles and we like to make and grow as much of our own food as possible. I am almost always in the kitchen baking, fermenting, making yoghurt, preserving, making soap, or cleaning foraged fruits and seeds, or in the garden, watering, planting, sowing seeds in trays and choosing what seeds to order for the new season. I work full time on the property.
I am fluent in Italian and Ralf in German. To find out what we are up to most days please find us on I n s t a g r a m @maravillagedreaming or please search for Village Dreaming as it will give you a very good idea of who we are and the many projects we are passionately cultivating.
We are a non-smoking property, and that applies to every bit of our property. We also encourage you to have waste-free meals while here and to take responsibility for the waste you produce by taking the waste you create home with you, with the exception of compostables: we provide a compost bin.
We provide a bin in the bathroom as well because that is necessary. If you wish to eat in, there is almost always something to harvest from the garden in summer. In winter, however, we grow soil not vegetables.
We really look forward to sharing our story with you and hearing yours. We love having guests!
Guest access
You can access the piazza garden, kitchen & berry gardens and beautiful wetland. You are welcome to use every inch of this beautiful space. When the kitchen garden is productive in summer you are welcome to access herbs, vegetables and berries. Enjoy the paddocks with their burgeoning chestnut trees, oaks, walnuts and hazelnuts. Or join me for a cooking workshop and learn to make wild yeasted bread, slow fermented black garlic & kimchi, soap, or home-made pasta culminating in a sit down lunch or dinner. Learn to make gnocchi, polenta or jams and pickles. At various times we sell pasture raised pork, ask us about this delicious meat. Enjoy neighbouring properties by taking the farm circuit walk. I can’t wait to meet you.
Other things to note
We offer one- and two-week permaculture classes for groups of up to four. If you wish to stay here both to relax & also to learn artisanal skills and food growing skills from us, then please get in touch with me and I will direct you to our Permaculture Living Information and booking page. This area is also abundant with foraging opportunities and wonderful bike rides. In fact the ride to Yandoit from here is marvellous because it feels like you are riding in a romantic landscape mix of Australia and Swiss Italy.
