It was great to see our farmer Kaye McNaught from Tweed River Pecans at the market talking about her new crop of Pecans and cracking open some of the recent harvest. For anyone who missed out on trying the new seasons’ nuts they will be available to purchase from the Nudgelnuts stall. I’ll ensure that Kayes pecan recipes are placed on our website very soon.
The next fruit to come into season is the delicious Kiwi Fruit. Rosalind Cairns from Echo Valley Farm is getting ready to pick, sort, pack and bring her kiwi fruit to our market. Echo Valley is a beautiful, historic, working farm set on 180 acres in Springbrook and the kiwi orchard is over 30 years old. It was one of the first kiwi fruit orchards planted in Australia and has approximately 3 acres supporting over 500 plants (one male plant to every six or seven females). It has both the original Bruno variety of Kiwi Frui, as well as the commercial Hayward Variety. Apparently there’s a lot of fallen fruit early in the season mainly due to birds. This fruit is being picked up, sold as seconds fruit and is used to make her wonderful Echo Valley Kiwi Fruit and Ginger Jam which is delicious on toast, with scones, used in desserts or with your local Nimbin Valley cheese platter.
The farm is waiting for the wet weather to ease, the sun to come out and cooler nights to happen so that the sugar content of the fruit can increase. We’re hoping to have the Echo Valley farm back at the market within the next few weeks. Check out our market board or facebook site for her commencement dates.
Deb Fuller -Market Manager
