Of all the botanicals we grow at Shire House Farm, rosemary is the one that feels most at home on the Bellarine Peninsula.
It thrives in our clay and sandy soils, handles the coastal wind without complaint, and rewards relatively modest rainfall with an intensity of scent that stops you in your tracks when you brush past it on a dry summer afternoon. If we were to choose one plant that captures what this place smells like, rosemary would be a strong contender.
We started with around 100 rosemary plants, and they took to the conditions immediately. Since then, we’ve expanded to approximately 20 rows in the field -with more plants in our nursery ready to follow. Our long term plan is for around 80 rows of Bellarine grown rosemary.
Our Rosemary: Variety, Soil and Organic Practices
We grow a specific variety selected for its high essential oil content and its performance in our particular conditions on the Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria. The plants are managed without synthetic inputs — fed by organic matter and supported by the natural biology of the soil, and left to develop at their own pace.
Rosemary is not a plant that rewards impatience. The most aromatic specimens are those that have had time to establish deep root systems and experience a full seasonal cycle.
Rosemary begins flowering in autumn, producing beautiful blue-purple flowers against the bold green foliage. For essential oil production, harvesting is best done before flowering becomes dominant - so we check the plants during harvest season and make the call based on their flowering stage and the weather.
Harvest: How We Pick Our Rosemary
We harvest with a motorised cutter that takes the fresh growth - usually the top third of the plant - and feeds it into an attached bag. It’s a family effort: two people on the harvester, two people setting up and filling our Italian-made still, compacting the foliage for best possible extraction.
From harvest, the rosemary goes one of two ways depending on the product it is destined for.
Rosemary & Murray River Salt
For our Rosemary & Murray River Salt, fresh rosemary from the farm is dried naturally to preserve its aromatic oils, then ground down and combined with Murray River pink salt flakes.
The result is a culinary salt with genuine depth — the mineral character of the salt complementing the resinous warmth of the rosemary in a way that works across everything from roasted vegetables to grilled lamb. It’s a product with clear provenance: grown, harvested, and blended right here on the Bellarine Peninsula.
Rosemary Water: Steam-Distilled Botanical Hydrosol
For our Rosemary Water, the fresh rosemary goes straight into our still, where it is steam-distilled to extract the essential oils.
What remains is a hydrosol — the water-soluble aromatic compounds that are captured after distillation. This is a gentle, non-alcoholic botanical water that carries the true scent of the plant without any synthetic fragrance.
Our still has 500 litre capacity and was imported from Italy - a stainless steel beauty that heats and steams the foliage, extracting essential oil in the process.
Why Provenance Matters
Both products sit at the heart of what Shire House Farm is about: a direct, traceable, honest relationship between a plant grown in this specific place and a finished product that carries that provenance with it.
The rosemary is still out there in the field. If you visit, you are welcome to take a sprig.
Browse our full range of organically grown botanicals and farm-made products at Shire House Farm.