I supply freshly harvested avocados from my family’s and neighbour’s farms to selected farmers markets in Sydney. Fridays: The Beaches Market, Warriewood
Saturdays: 1st and 3rd of every month at North Sydney Farmers Market
Fortnightly at Carriageworks Farmers market
We attend the markets only from July to nov/December which is the duration of our season. We have two main varieties: Hass (the usu
al avocado everyone is familiar with) and the luxurious Sharwill variety (a smooth skinned avocado definitely worth checking out). Our Sharwills have a very short season, beginning in late August and lasting only a few months. Origins of our farm
Our farm was built from scratch, carved out of the bush by third generation market gardener Don Kafer (my father). It was done the hard way; slowly and surely, through painstaking physical labour by Don and wife Coral, and various friends and family. Being a small farm, we couldn’t afford the large labour-saving machinery that other big farms had at their disposal. Work was never-ending, and went from sunrise to sunset every day. Holidays in the early years were rare. Don began as a tomato grower in the 1960s. In those days, the entire Bobs Farm and Anna Bay area was the main food bowl for the Newcastle region. That ended when refrigerated transport began in the 1970s. This was a devastating blow to local farmers because food could now be shipped in from the big Queensland farms, and local farms could not compete. Many farms went under. My father decided to diversify by planting some avocado trees to see how they went. In those days less was known about growing avocados in Australia. Not a lot was known about how avocado trees would grow so far south of Queensland. My father believed that the sandy soil of the farm would suit them, and faced with falling prices for tomatoes, decided to take the risk. His first avocado plantation was in 1976. The trees thrived! And the farm survived. By the 1980s my father had planted and cared for 3000 trees and we had begun producing avocados for the wholesale market. At that time, my folks decided to open a road side stall on Nelson Bay Road (about 25 minutes out of Nelson Bay NSW). The stall produced freshly grown veggies and avocados. It became a runaway success, as word of mouth spread and people realised that they could buy veggies picked that morning which would outlast anything bought from the supermarket! Eventually my parents began to think about slowing down because it took a lot to maintain 3000 trees! They were able to sell the eastern section of the farm, and later the road side stall business (around year 2000). This left them with about 900 trees, which made the farm much more manageable. However, last year the decision was made by my folks to retire, and they sold another large portion of the farm with 800 trees to our long time family friends and now our new neighbours. We kept 100 trees and a section of the farm for us to continue to live upon. The farmers markets
We began the farmers markets in 2012 and quickly gained a loyal following. Our avocados are attractive to customers because they are local, they are fresh, and they are sustainable. Our avocados are not organic and we do spray some of our trees every year (around January). However, we spray selectively and only a few times in a year! This is in contrast to industry standards which recommend fortnightly sprays during harvest. We have found we do not need to do this. Spraying is required to deal with fruit spotting bug - which lays eggs in the growing avocado. The avocado cleverly quarantines the eggs by encapsulating it within a hard pellet. These are the hard pellets that consumers find from time to time in avocados. The pellets do not affect the flavour of the avocado at all. They are easy to spot and can simply be removed from the avocado flesh before consumption.
