A little about Evan

Hello everyone I would like to take this chance to introduce myself a little bit to our customers, I am a much better writer than speaker so this is best format for me to reach out, Jill is the talker, I am the writer.

My name is Evan Michael Young, I am a 37 year old Husband, Father, Son, Gardener and Musician. I am very shy and have extreme social anxiety, depression and recently realised I have had un-diagnosed PTSD since at least the birth of my first child but likely well before then. I had a complete mental breakdown in September 2020, forcing me to leave full-time employment and basically spent the next few months crying a lot daily, seeking refuge in gardening. I have struggled with depression and anxiety since I was in Primary School and my anxiety is currently the second worst it has ever been in my life. Interacting with people in real life can absolutely terrify me and I am known to hide to from people if they pop over unexpectedly. It takes several days for me to recover from stalling at Markets as I find crowds of strangers very overwhelming. I can and will work my way out of this rut but since the COVID Lockdowns came in full force I have been a real mess. I am often judged as anti-social but I am very friendly once you have my trust.

Jill and I have been both been healing ourselves from cancers found all over our bodies since late 2019, we are currently on a break from our main treatment due to having another baby in October last year. We stopped counting but I have removed over 50 tumours of various sizes and Jill, who was diagnosed with blood cancer when we met had 150-200 tumours riddled throughout her body. We were basically in pain from late 2019 until late 2021, sometimes the pain was mild, other times it hurt so much that there was nothing else to do but cry. Jill’s Sunshine Salve and Aloe Vera from our garden were both a Godsend during this period.

We started Rainbow OMG in February 2020 and have been at it beyond full-time ever since. We first broke ground at 2 Rigg Street at the start of February. We would work all morning, everyday until it became too hot to work anymore, Summer’s in Rainbow are very hot! While we were establishing the garden I was also labouring for the local concreter, which is at times a brutally hard trade to work in, all while doing painful cancer treatments and raising our very high energy, dynamo of a son William.

I grew up in Wangaratta, born to Bernard Young and Barbara Young (Gosling). I have been visiting Rainbow my entire life and as a child would refer to it as my second home. My favourite childhood memories are all from time spent at the Gosling’s Farm at Nypo. I was one of the Pallbearer’s at the funerals of both my grandparents Bob and Isabel Gosling who are buried together in Rainbow.

My first passion in life was music and can play Bass, Guitar, Banjo, Piano and Drums in descending order of skill. I learned piano as a child but starting to play bass at 14 was what really lit the fire in my soul. I had a few formal lessons but didn’t click with the teacher at all so switched gears to teaching myself simply by learning to play songs that I liked. I played in 2 punk rock bands in high school and another 2 after moving to Melbourne in 2005. In 2009 I joined a band that I was a huge fan of The Go Set playing bass and occasional banjo for them full-time until leaving the band in 2016 to get married. I must have played over 500 gigs across Australia, 5 tours of Europe and 2 of the USA. I proposed to Jill on stage, mid-set at The Northcote Social Club, there is video of it on YouTube I am sure of it. My bandmate Tommy jokingly calls Jill “Yoko Ono”, but she only took me from the band, The Go Set just released their new album and it is the best one yet. Go and see them live, you will not be disappointed.

Looking back 2009 was a significant year for me as it was also the year I discovered Permaculture and completed my Permaculture Design Certificate under Geoff Lawton and Bill Mollison. This course, as it does to most people, changed my life forever. I have never done anything so empowering as to complete this course, other than teach myself the Trivium. I have always worried for the state of the environment and this course showed me that all the answers to our problems already exist, they just need to be designed into our existing systems. Following my PDC I completed a 10 week internship at Geoff Lawton’s property Zaytuna Farm which is located at The Channon in Northern NSW. During this internship Geoff invited me to stay on for a full year for extended mentorship. I ended up leaving after 8 months to come home to bury my Pa (Bob) but learned so much while up there including I did not want to settle anywhere with high humidity. My Nan (Isabel) passed away a few months after Pa, she held on until he died being the faithful and serving wife she always was.

I eventually settled in Woodend, Victoria entirely due to the fact that Taranaki Farm is there and I wished to learn more about farming from them. I volunteered my labour on many occasions and engaged with them on social media and I eventually was awarded a scholarship to attend a 3 day intensive course with world famous farmer Joel Salatin “The Lunatic Farmer” who is perhaps the most inspirational person I have ever come across. This course was a rapid and deep dive into how to run a regenerative, small-scale farm, which builds topsoil, grows nutrient dense food and is economically viable for the farmer. The triple bottom line.

Not long after completing this course I was offered a job at Taranaki Farm and lived and worked there for a stint. I loved my time there and have nothing but praise for the Falloon family. As with every job I have ever had, eventually my mind wandered and I got bored, I am an entrepreneur at heart and am never fully satisfied working for someone else. I left the farm and started my own man with a van/courier service “Central Deliveries” which had a daily run from the Macedon Ranges to and across Melbourne, delivering everything from lab samples to 3 metre long hardwood tables. This is where I really learned how to run a business successfully, having attempted a few side hustles that went nowhere in the past. Our revenue doubled every year of operations and business was booming, to this day over 5 years later I still get calls from people looking for me to deliver items, evidently no one filled the hole in the market after I left. We folded Central Deliveries and moved out to this area in 2017.

The reason I was willing to fold such a promising business is simple, my heart wasn’t in it. I need a lot more than money to be satisfied in my soul, I need the majority of my time to be dedicated to meaningful work otherwise my depression kicks in hard.

Ever since completing my initial PDC I have been dreaming of ways I could move to Rainbow to live a quiet life of gardening and music. The vision has changed in the finer details but I have felt called to come out here since 2009, something was prodding me in this direction but it was up to me to work out how to do it. I knew I needed a partner to move out here with but prior to Jill any girlfriend I bought out here couldn’t handle the isolation from a big city. Jill was the exact opposite, upon her first arrival into the town her first words were “why aren’t we living here already”. I proposed not long after and here were are now.

I hope this piece gives an insight as to who I am as a person, I try to see the good in everything no matter what life smashes me over the head with, if life was meant to be easy it would be very boring.