Sunflower Farm Tours
ABOUT ME
Renato Ulpiano
Farmer · Host · Carool, NSW
THE TURNING POINT
Three years ago, I lost my brother Remo. Grief has a way of making you stop — really stop — and ask what you are doing with your time and your life. In the quiet that followed, I kept returning to the same thought: my father, who had also passed, was never more alive than when he had his hands in the soil. Market gardening, growing things, watching plants push through the earth — it was his great joy. It was, I slowly understood, part of our Italian DNA.
Remo's death made me wonder what I was waiting for. So I stopped waiting.
"I didn't inherit a farm. I chose one — out of love, loss, and the need to build something real with my hands."
Sunflowers
·
Growing
·
Harvesting
·
Photographing
·
Sunflowers · Growing · Harvesting · Photographing ·
A LIFE BEFORE THE PADDOCK
My journey to farming was not a straight line. Over more than two decades in the corporate world, I built a career spanning marketing, technology, and business development — working with major organisations including Microsoft, Telstra, Melbourne IT, and Oracle. I earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Melbourne and later pursued a Doctor of Business Administration at Victoria University, where I also co-founded Ladybug House, a therapy and assessment clinic for children.
Those years taught me how to communicate, how to organise complexity, how to understand what people genuinely need — and how to build something from the ground up. None of that left me when I swapped the boardroom for the paddock. It just found a new purpose.
TWO YEARS OF LEARNING BY DOING
Farming is humbling. I came in with curiosity, enthusiasm, and an Italian stubbornness that refuses to quit — and the farm has been my teacher every single day. Over the past two years I have learned soil health, seasonal rhythms, plant care, water management, and the particular language that each crop speaks when it needs something. There is no shortcut. You show up, you watch, you adjust.
What started as a personal calling has grown into something I want to share. The farm is a living, working place — and I believe there is something genuinely nourishing about spending time in it.
What’s growing
The olive orchard in particular feels like a conversation with my father. Olives take years to bear fruit — they ask you to think long-term, to care for something you may not immediately harvest. That patience feels right. It feels connected..
WHY A FARM TOUR?
I want to open the gate and invite people in — not to a museum piece of a farm, but to a real, working, growing place. Whether you're curious about where food comes from, looking for a slower morning away from the noise, or simply want to wander through sunflowers and breathe differently for a few hours, you are welcome here.
I will walk with you, answer every question honestly, and share the story of this land — including the parts that were hard-won. That, I think, is what makes a farm tour worth doing. Bookings opening soon.