From an often controversial job as one of Australia’s most powerful food critics, Matthew Evans stepped, unknowing and untested, off the treadmill. Leaving the urban grit of a terrace house in Sydney’s inner west, he ended up on 20 acres in Australia’s most southernmost shire; a smallholder farmer in Tasmania with no clue.

What is it really like to take the plunge and leave a whole world of familiar people, places and work behind? How does it feel to have never used a cordless drill, to suddenly plant a garden, to milk a cow, to build sheds and shelters? And what if a TV show is filming the transformation at the same time?

This is the story of that transformation. The story of a life more in tune with the seasons and more connected to the soil. A life that is as rewarding as it is exhausting. The story of a family trying to turn a living from the ancient, noble art of growing things on the land.