We are very excited that our 2018 Achacha season is now underway and the crop is looking very encouraging. This marks the 6th year we have been growing our fruit chemical free using regenerative agricultural principles and biodynamic methods. Visitors to the plantation have commented how healthy and robust our trees are looking.
The pickers began their work on Monday 15th January, which is more or less our normal start date (but a month earlier than last year). Pallets have reached our agents in the Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne wholesale markets so you will start to see more and more Achachas on retailer shelves. We try to keep everyone informed on our Achacha Facebook page and on Instagram (@AchachaAus). Please feel free to advise us if you’ve found the fruit in your local fruit shops so we can pass the information on.
If you can’t find it ask the fresh food manager in your favourite store to contact one of our agents:
- Romeos Marketing Qld, Rocklea Markets Brisbane
- MorcoFresh, Shed 1, Flemington Markets, Sydney
- Fresh Produce Group, Shed 2, Flemington Markets, Sydney
- All Aussie Farmers, Melbourne Markets
Biodynamics is a very interesting method which is working well and it makes a lot of sense working with nature and growing our fruit in ever healthier soils. Winter is the time for soil inputs and foliar sprays. We use a lot of sea minerals and other inputs which we make on site. We skirt and top the trees and open them up to make for easier picking. As we are the world’s first commercial Achacha plantation there is always a lot to learn and many experiments to carry out. There are also always mechanical challenges, filters to clean, sprinklers to be checked and replaced and unexpected things such as repairing damage the wild pigs do in their search for earthworms!
From the 60 mango trees we have on the plantation we sent a pallet to the Slow Food Earth Markets in the Hunter Valley. They called it Mango Madness in the local paper and it’s all about food waste. People were excited and lined up and waiting so the fruit, all organically grown, which was then sold straight off the utes rather than from the stall. When our mangoes are ripe there are so many mangoes around the area it is not worth us picking them. However, now we have found a way to sell through the Earth Markets and on our two Saturday morning stalls at Carriageworks we are able to get a fair return. People loved the flavour and have ask us to do it again next year.
Each week we have farmers’ market stalls at Cotters Market, Flinders Street in Townsville, Northside Produce Markets in North Sydney (bi-weekly), and Carriageworks Farmers Markets, Eveleigh near Sydney Uni. We would love to have a stall in Melbourne Farmers Markets if we had an offer of help there – we need someone to organise that!
Now that the Achachas are more widely distributed we don’t do online sales but please get in touch if you are located away from good fruit shops and we will try to help out.
