Is a gardener born or made? In the case of Frank and Anita Vella, from Wallington, Victoria, you could say it’s a bit of both.
Wallington is a rural township on the Bellarine Peninsula near Geelong, the sort of place where the local school runs an annual strawberry fair. For 150 years, Bellarine Shire has been a patchwork of farms and market gardens, thanks to waves of immigrants.
Frank himself arrived in Australia from Malta in 1963; his father, John, had a farm in Rockbank in outer Melbourne. “Frank has always loved gardening,” says Anita. “He was brought up with vegetables, chooks, rabbits and canaries.”
Frank loves goat’s milk, especially when his mother, Mary, used to make gbejniet, a Maltese cheese that’s a bit like ricotta. “It goes into a…