Susanna Freymark
Frieda and John are the most unlikely people to be peach farmers.
Frieda Kamdani grew up in a large Indonesian city and John de Kleuver owned and ran pro golf shops around the world.
Fast forward many years and the couple are kept busy with not only the peach orchard on Hogarth Range, they also maintain a vegetable garden and sell their fresh produce at the Casino Lions Farmers Market every Saturday.
For Frieda, the vegie garden is her “happy place.” 
John calls it “heaven on a stick.”
The cows graze next to the dam, their three dogs – Bella, Blue and Boof – chase each other while John and Frieda weed the lush garden. There is an old van in the vegie patch so they can have a cup of coffee or shelter if it rains.
John and Frieda spend hours in the garden – it is only a two minute walk from the farmhouse, but it is other worldly in the vegie patch and it’s easy to see how they could spend a day there accompanied by the mooing of the cows and a bright blue sky overhead.
They mainly garden during the colder months when the peaches are dormant.
Along the way, they’ve learned what grows well on the fertile soil at the top of Hogarth Range.
Capsicums didn’t work well, leafy greens flourish and the broccolini was almost ready to pick and the silver beet and tomatoes looked as if they were reaching for the sky.
“We spend four to five hours a day in the garden,” Frieda said.
“I could do this for the next 40 years,” John said.
“You get daily satisfaction when you plant a bed of new seedlings.”
The volcanic soil on the farm helps make the garden grow so well.
John’s parents lived on a farm in the Snowy Mountains in the early 1960s raising fat lambs.
“They leased it and couldn’t buy it,” John said.
“I always wanted to buy a farm.”
Not that it’s always easy – there’s a lot to do. 
Every week John has to spend three days on dialysis at Lismore Base Hospital. For two years, he’s been doing this.
“I do Sudoku during the difficult hours,” John said.
At the hospital they call him Farmer John – he smiles.
Frieda keeps working in the vegie garden while John is away.
The vegies are organic (not certified), spray-free and definitely grown with lots of love.
Buy the fresh produce grown by John and Frieda at the farmers market in Crawford Square Park in South Casino every Saturday 8am–11am. The market was started by John and Frieda nearly five years ago.
They’ll be hosting their 10th Peach Festival in October.