our
fARM

Welcome to The Truffledore - our little piece of paradise in North West Tasmania, with a bit of European flair and black truffle magic thrown in! We are Ina and Timo and we took on the farm and business in early 2019. For us it has been a wonderful and much needed tree change!

Getting the hang of the truffle growing business has been an adventure and a steep learning curve. But we love being able to combine our passion for great food and simple farm living with our European heritage in a true farm-to-table experience… with a little bit of truffley decadence of course!

Our
Family

Ina

I'm a Marine Biologist / Zoologist by trade and from Germany. While I've called Australia home for most of my adult life, I still sneak a few German traditions in, especially around Christmas! I love the seasonality of our farm life in Tasmania: Flowers in spring, bountiful veggies and fruit in summer, the colours of the trees in autumn, and the thrill of truffle season in winter!

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Timo

I'm from Queensland with family heritage in Scotland. I've worked in several industries around Australia and have been a paramedic for the last 10 years. But my real passion is good honest home-cooked food! My favourite thing about country life here in Tasmania is all the amazing fresh produce to cook with... and spending so much time with our puppy dogs!

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Cody

Born in 2019, Cody is our oldest dog and fully trained truffle hunter. He’s a Smithfield X Huntaway with a passion for herding our flocks of geese and chickens! He’s the friendliest dog in the world and loves a good pat and a cuddle and being the centre of attention during truffle hunts!

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Kiki

Born in December 2021, Kiki’s a Kelpie X Labrador. She’s very excitable but extremely loving and loyal! She’s a "velcro dog" - she just wants to be right next to her human, which makes her highly motivated for truffle hunting as it means lots of one-on-one time and yummy treats for finding truffles!

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Darcy

Mr Darcy is the newest member of our team of truffle dogs, born in June 2022. He’s a Smithfield X Border Collie and the calmest puppy you’ll ever meet! He loves snuggles and is stealing hearts everywhere he goes. He’s also extremely smart and is already picking up the truffle game just by watching his sister Kiki’s training sessions!

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Bobby, Buttercup & Berta

Our three Jersey cows came to the farm as young calves and are extremely friendly! They love saying Hi to our farm stay guests, especially if a handful of hay is on offer!

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The Guinea Fowl

Our confusion of 15 lavender guinea fowl play an important role on our farm. They are the natural pest control task force in the truffière and you can watch them wander among the oaks, hunting down bugs and slugs! They are also a great warning system for our chooks, as they make quite the ruckus of alarm calls when a predator is near!

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The Chooks

Our free-ranging flock of 60-odd Belgian D’Ucclé chickens provide us with wonderfully tasty little eggs for our truffle omelettes or Crème Brûlée! They are beautiful colours and quite friendly and our farmstay guests love hand-feeding them!

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The Geese

The 20-odd Pilgrim geese that free-range on our property are generally shy and do their own thing. They’re great lawn mowers, and their eggs in springtime make fantastic pasta doughs and baked goods – if we can find them!

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Seasons
on our Farm

Winter

Our Black Winter Truffles ripen and are harvested in WINTER (June – August), making this our busiest time of year! This is when we are out with our dogs, harvesting black truffles for sale at our farm gate and around Australia! Join us for our signature TRUFFLE HUNT & HARVEST LUNCH experience to see us and the dogs at work, have a go at digging up a truffle and enjoy a four-course feast full of freshly harvested truffle. A time of crackling log fires and the deep, rich, earthy aroma of fresh truffle wafting through our kitchen!

Spring

SPRING (September – November) is our maintenance season in the truffière – time to prune the oak trees, cultivate the soil, add lime and make sure the irrigation system is working. We close The Truffledore tasting room to the public for the months of September to November to focus on these tasks and also the busy job of spring planting in the veggie garden! It’s a lovely time of the year to book a FARM STAY, as the farm comes to life with trees and flowers bursting into bloom and baby chicks and goslings being born.

Summer

Our truffles start forming in the soil by early SUMMER (December – February), meaning we have now closed the gates to the truffière to let the magic happen below the soil with as little disturbance as possible! But the rest of the farm is now in full swing, with fruit from our orchard and lots of veggies and produce ripening! A great time for a FARM TO TABLE COOKING EXPERIENCE! Or bring in the festive season with our annual CHRISTMAS HIGH TEA!

Autumn

AUTUMN (March – May) is a truly spectacular time to visit Northwest Tasmania as the trees change colours with vibrant tones of yellows, oranges and reds before dropping their leaves. Plenty more fruit and veg to be harvested at this time of the year. Join us for a FARM TOUR to see our gardens and the truffière in all their autumn colours or MEET THE TRUFFLE DOGS as they get back into training, ready for the upcoming truffle season! We close for the month of May for a much-needed rest before the busy time of truffle season is upon us again!

The
Truffledore

Located in the sleepy hamlet of Lower Barrington in the foothills of Cradle Mountain, we boast some of the cleanest air in the world. With Tasmania’s rich volcanic soil and a climate that resembles the South of France, it’s no wonder the region is perfect for growing our wonderfully fragrant Black Winter Truffles (Tuber melanosporum). Our boutique truffière was planted in 2007 and contains 600 English Oak, Hollyoak and Hazelnut trees. The black winter truffle grows on their root system, in a symbiotic relationship with the trees. Our farm is run as organically as possible and we avoid using chemicals such as pesticides, relying instead on natural forms of pest control like our flocks of guinea fowl and Indian runner ducks. Harvesting our truffle is done completely by hand, finding them with the aid of our truffle dogs.

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