Hello and welcome to the October 22 edition of Our Seasons Market Trail
To celebrate the greenest Spring we’ve had in ages in Wangaratta and the beautiful North East, we invite you to travel our October Market Trail to round up the ingredients you’ll need to follow our recipe for the perfect Spring picnic.
So let’s pack a Spring Picnic…
We are delighted to feature the produce of five local producers for our Spring Picnic recipe!
To find this month’s Market Trail producers, just look for the bright green flags at each participating producer’s stall.
All of the ingredients for your Spring picnic are available at our next Wangaratta Farmers Market on Saturday, 8 October, starting bright and early at 8am!
This month’s market trail
This month we’re featuring the incredibly fresh, seasonal produce of five local producers for our Spring Picnic recipe!
Featured ingredients we’re looking for:
- Salad leaves and fresh herbs from Torcaso Produce ( whatever takes your fancy)
- Lions Mane mushrooms from Markwood Mushrooms
- Walnuts and walnut oil from King Valley Walnuts
- Honey from Walkabout Apiaries
- Award-winning Kimchi Table Sauce from Edible Alchemy
Make sure you tune in on this Friday, 7 October to catch recipe for a perfect Our Spring Picnic!
Now we invite you to learn a little bit more about our featured producers and their stories…
Stop 1: Torcaso Produce
Dom and his wife Mareeta, Torcaso Produce
Ask just about anyone who buys from Torcaso Produce and they are sure to tell you that his herbs and veges are exceptionally tasty and exceptionally fresh.
Dom grows a huge range of fresh herbs and vegetables including basil, dill, coriander, thyme, parsley, lettuce, and baby spinach featured in this month’s Spring Picnic recipe…..
Dom tends tends his extensive market garden at Myrtleford almost single-handedly … with more than a little help from his wife, Mareeta, and at planting time, his brother.
So, what’s Dom’s secret to exceptional produce?
Well, he tastes every variety he plants right there in the paddock as it ripens.
If he’s not blown away by the raw taste of a new variety, he just won’t grow it again.
We also hear Dom is a real foodie and loves to cook so Dom demands the highest quality from his herbs and vegetables to please his finely tuned taste buds and yours.
Click here to find Torcaso Produce on FaceBook .
Stop 2: King Valley Walnuts
Carol Kunert and Mike Burston, King Valley Walnuts
We are delighted to feature King Valley Walnuts in this month’s Spring Picnic Market Trail .
But first, we’ve just got to tell you, it must take a mountain of patience to be a walnut grower!
King Valley Walnuts principals, Carol Kunert and Mike Burston can surely vouch for this!
We understand that they tended their walnuts for over 20 years before harvesting their nut crop in viable quantities.
This patience and dedication does eventually pays off as Mike and Carol have been bringing home a swag of awards from celebrated national Fine Foods Awards for nearly 10 years.
But it all starts with their quality fresh walnuts and kernels.
This year, King Valley Walnuts took out the prestigious gold medal at the 2022 Royal Sydney Fine Food Awards for their Tamari Walnuts, and a silver medal at the 2022 Royal Tasmanian Fine Food Awards for their Walnut Butter.
Receiving just one of these awards would be something to justly proud … but Carol and Mike have excelled and become repeat multi-award winners at a national level.
Their secret?
To strive to produce the highest quality walnuts that make the Earth and all the people on it smile.
Champions of value-add walnut processing, Carol and Mike also produce their own cold-pressed walnut oil using a 300-year-old artisan extraction method that produces a nutty oil full of Omega-3 fatty acids and Vitamin E. This oil is as good for your face (as a moisturiser) as it is in a salad.
They also produce incredible walnut flour, spiced walnuts, chocolate walnuts and pickled walnuts.
If you need a fix of walnuts between farmers markets, check out their website or even visit their farm shop at Myrrhee,
The King Valley Walnuts shop is open for sales from mid-April to December 9am to 4 pm Mon to Thurs.
But be sure to ring before you visit on 0417 565 493
Stop 4: Walkabout Apiaries
The generations of bees and the Whitehead family who bring you Walkabout honey
We are just so proud to feature Bloody Good Honey from Walkabout Apiaries in the perfect recipe for your Spring Picnic this Saturday.
When you buy Walkabout Honey you are connecting to the story that has now ‘pollinated’ three generations of the Whitehead family, growing from one man’s hobby into a lifetime love of bees and the bush, with even the youngest Whiteheads now lending a hand at our Farmers Market.
What bees can teach us
To quote the Whitehead family, “Bees have taught us to be a close family, to work harmoniously and productively to meet our collective goals. They have taught us patience, provided reward in good seasons and offered solace in hard years. Our bees are the greatest teachers in our lives and a daily link to the environment in which we live”.
We understand that the Walkabout bees are just as happy and healthy, gathering nectar from the tall flowering eucalypts of the high Country to the might Reg Gums of the Ovens, King and Murray Rivers.
Their honeys are cold extracted and packed by hand.
Care is taken at each step to ensure their honey remains true to its origins.
Each honey variety presents its own unique taste from the sweet Ironbark to the robust Mountain Harvest. Honey is never just honey, so try a couple and find your favourite.
Walkabout Apiaries collection of unique, health-giving honeys and meads are also available online.
Click here to find out more about Walkabout Apiaries and check out their on-line shop
Stop 4: Edible Alchemy
Jes and Riley, Edible Alchemy
Jes and Riley of Edible Alchemy offer their award-winning Kimchi Table Sauce as one of the star ingredients in our perfect recipe for a Spring Picnic this month.
The judges of the Mr Chilli Awards 2022 gave this amazing sauce a first place in the Chilli Sauce – Tomato category. It balances the complex flavour of Edible Alchemy’s kimchi brine with the luscious taste of ripe tomatoes. It is a sauce for everyone.
Here at the Wangaratta Farmers Market, we just love watching their business and their hand-made product range grow.
Jes and Riley are passionate and innovative chefs and avid gardeners who just love to create new flavours with the produce they grow. Their incredible passion for local and seasonal produce and environmental sustainability shows in everything they touch, as does their focus on learning and incredible attention to detail.
Over the years they have developed their skills in preserving , creating Edible Alchemy, a preserving company based in Beechworth whose products are fast becoming favourites with food lovers across Australia.
Murmungee Basin Produce made it possible for Jes and Riley to adopt some land to start our own market garden, which they call the Victory Patch.
They grow all the ingredients they can at the Victory Patch & go out & gather what they can from the local area. All their products are made with 100% Australian grown produce.
Minimal environmental impact is integral to Edible Alchemy. They nourish the garden with all of the green waste that they create producing their products. Product packaging is reusable, compostable or recyclable & they accept the return of their jars & bottles. They request plastic free packaging options for products they source and only use compostable packaging to ship their products.
Learn more about Edible Alchemy’s incredible range of products here
Stop 5: Markwood Mushrooms
Emma, John and Adam, Marwood Mushrooms
What does a mathematician and expert in artificial intelligence and former aquaculturalist (fish farmer) have in common? A love of mushrooms!
John Ward and Adam Beauchamp have spent years researching the growing habits and life and health-giving properties of mushrooms before launching their new business, Markwood Mushrooms, at last month Wangaratta Farmers Market.
Markwood Mushrooms offer Lion’s Mane mushrooms as the key ingredient in our perfect recipe for a Spring Picnic. Also known as hou tou gu or yamabushitake, they are large, white, shaggy mushrooms that resemble a lion’s mane as they grow.
Not only are they good to eat but they have incredible health-giving properties.
Research shows that Lion’s Mane mushrooms may be beneficial in protecting against dementia, relieving mild anxiety and depression, speeding recovery from nervous system injuries, protecting against ulcers, reducing heart disease and diabetes, boosting our immune systems and also reducing inflammation.
In our recipe, released this Friday, we will be treating Lion’s Mane mushrooms like steaks.
We suggest you drop by the Markwood Mushrooms stall and pick up some Lions’ Mane . And while you are there, chat to John and Adam about their unique range of mushrooms and their life-giving properties.
Head to their Instagram page to see more amazing Markwood mushrooms