Bickleigh Vale Farm in McLaren Vale, South Australia | Farm

Bickleigh Vale Farm

Locality: McLaren Vale, South Australia

Phone: +61 407 339 660

Address: 197 Hunt Road 5171 McLaren Vale, SA, Australia

Website: http://www.bickleighvalefarm.com.au/

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• Farmers market

25.01.2022 There has never been a more important time to plant your own vegtable garden & have access to fresh nutritionally filled produce. Come find us at the Willunga & Adelaide Farmers Market this weekend to get your seedlings & fresh veggies. If you prefer to avoid the crowds come visit us on the farm on Tuesdays or Thursday’s. If these days don’t suit please call to arrange another time. Keep an eye on the page this week as we will be announcing a Facebook live event to connect with each other & to inspire you create & grow your own garden. There will be an opportunity to ask questions online & access Di’s amazing knowledge.

25.01.2022 Hello good folk, Good news plant lovers! Bev Lane, respected herbalist, elder, poet and all round wonderful human will be holding a SFFF presented workshop: Sun...day 12th February, 10am - 1pm @ Mount Pleasant Community Garden - to teach us all about Summer plants and their many beautiful uses. If you have been to Bev's workshops before, at the Festival or out in the community you would know that Bev has an abundance of knowledge on all things plants - including herbs, natives and exotics and their medicinal, spiritual uses and folklore. This is sure to be a wonderful, educational, inspiring session, but to ensure quality time with Bev there is only 20 tickets available, so get in quick! The workshop will be located in Mount Pleasant which has no public buses from Adelaide (That we are aware of), so if you are going along and have spare seats, or are looking for a lift please comment below so we can try and organise some car pooling :) https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-plants-of-summer-and-th

21.01.2022 Bumper heirloom pumpkin harvest at the farm yesterday in preparation for Adelaide Botanic Gardens #Heirloomweekend this Sat 8th & Sat 9th. Get along to celebrate the beautiful heirloom vegetable Grew these interesting varietals (including Turks turban, Kakai, chioggia - the unique warty ones) for The Diggers Club display. Such fun, such diversity!

18.01.2022 I often hear folk lamenting how everything goes to seed in spring and I too used to look at it as a messy hindrance in the garden but I've come to really appreciate the natural reproductive cycle of veggies and all plants. Not only do you get hundreds, sometimes thousands, of potential seeds to save, cook with, swap on and propagate from - but you also have more interesting flowers in the garden and more food for the bees! Bringing these indispensable pollinators into the garden should be an everyday goal for all of us. So let it seed!

17.01.2022 Seed Freedom Food Festival is back! And we will have our Greenseeds NASAA Organic veggie seedlings there in a stall along with dozens of other local, organic stalls and three stages of free workshops and presenters!! And our favourite part of the day - the huge seed swap and food swap! So gather your backyard goodies and saved seeds to bring with you. This Saturday 24 September, ... 10am - 4pm @ 1 Holland St, (in the Market Shed space) $4 festival entry/children free / workshops all free no booking required! See you there green thumbs! See more

17.01.2022 *Market Announcement* Sorry folk we won't be at Willunga Farmers Market today (9/4/16) as we'll be at the 891 ABC Adelaide ABC Gardeners Market from 8-12:30... With dozens of other gardening stalls - it truly is shopping heaven for any gardener. May see you there? Otherwise we'll be back at Adelaide Showground Farmers Market tomorrow as usual. Keep on growing!

15.01.2022 Harvesting heirloom chilli variety - Joe's Long Cayenne, to save seed from for next year's crop of seedlings. Love their incredible length and shapes - a truly beautiful chilli! And about a milder 4/10 on the hot scale... Ask for your own seedling available at our farmers market stalls again this Spring

13.01.2022 We've moved stalls at the Willunga Farmers Market. Come find us tomorrow alongside the breakfast area (former site of Fat Goose Fruits). We have lots of lettuce, cauliflower and seedlings available for sale.

13.01.2022 A Special Announcement for our dearest Seed Freedom Festival goers and supporters, The team here at SFFF want to let you know how much gratitude and love we hav...e for you all, and your support of the Festival for the past 3 years! We have received many messages in the past few months about 2017 festivities, and would like to let you all know we have collectively decided to take a break this year, as we explore the direction in which we are taking the Festival. It has grown to immense proportions, and the support shown on the day is truly overwhelming and inspiring! We have been meeting since March to explore all sorts of possibilities, and we have hatched an exciting venture involving a seed bank/seed library & seed school. We are still exploring all sorts of wonderful ideas, and it is evolving into an enlivening and important project for us to work on together. If you are interested in being involved in any way or have any ideas, links or great resources for us, please do get in touch. We hope this will mean consistent access to open-pollinated seeds, ongoing education opportunities and frequent gatherings to engage, swap, learn about, spread awareness and sow seeds of hope to build community and ensure local food security. We truly value the incredible, grounded SFFF community that has grown over the years and thank you for all of your messages and kind words that continue to inspire us. ~ Keitha & the SFFF team. [Magic captures of our SFFF Seed Mandala - Years 1, 2 + 3, all by David Cann]

13.01.2022 Next weekend: For the love of SEED! The source of all life, and of all our food! <3

12.01.2022 When the rainbow chard leaves are so big that they double as sun umbrellas #organic

12.01.2022 A colourful harvest of diverse zucchini varieties for tonight's Willunga Farmers Market Twilight Market! We'll be there along with other Fleurieu farmers from 5pm - 8pm+ so you can grab your produce and seedlings for Christmas. We'll also have living salad and herb bowls planted up for last minute Chrissie gifts. All certified organic as always Hope to see you there!

11.01.2022 Freshly released, the official Line Up for Seed Freedom Food Festival 2016 ! :) See you there good gardening folk!

10.01.2022 We made a huge barrel of *Fermented Plant Tea* on the farm yesterday and before it ferments and goes all stinky it was the most awesome mix of "weeds" - aka. healing herbs that we had foraged and harvested from our two neighbouring farms. Into the mix went::: purslane plantain... comfrey yarrow dandelion parsley burdock milk thistle chamomile We harvested all the above (ideally before its flowered) chopped it up into smaller bits, half filling the barrel with the magic plant matter then filled the barrel up with rainwater and gave it a good stirring and aeration (tried with a stick but arms were more fun and all those herbs felt so good on the skin!) Now we'll leave it to ferment for 7-10 days til it gets a good fermenty stink happening and then dilute it 1:10 to spray every two weeks on the veggie foliage to help prevent viruses and diseases or directly on the soil to increase microbial action and diversity and replace nutrients into the ground that feeds the plants. If you wanted to spray weekly just make a weaker solution, "weekly, weakly" about 1: 20 or the colour of weak tea. Not only does this fermented plant tea increase the strength and health of your veggies and soil - putting the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium etc back into the ground - it also makes use of the highly nutritious "weeds" around your property, saves you money on fertilisers and ultimately reduces your external inputs (better for the environment!) because you've created a sustainable nutrient dense fertiliser from your own land and resources. It was a beautiful making to share with friends and can't wait to share this tea with the crops!

08.01.2022 We were very grateful to have a visit from an old friend Jude Fanton on the farm yesterday! Jude and husband Michel are the founders of The Seed Savers' Network Australia's national seed saving network which has been running for over 30 years. While they're based in Byron Bay they have extensively documented their ongoing world travels following the seed saving movement around the globe - check out their page/website/YouTube for more! Love this photo! So many smiles (except Stefan eating in the background haha) and our farm dog Tipper got in on the fun too Keep on saving and sowing those seeds all!

04.01.2022 Saved *thousands* of parsley seed at the farm yesterday - all from the one plant!! Nature's abundance continues to astound me... Letting them dry properly now but we will select out a good few of the fattest and healthiest looking seeds for resowing and then the rest will be used for culinary use - most likely destined to end up in our pickles and chutneys along with other organic veggies grown on the farm. Thank you Parsley.

04.01.2022 Introducing the newest members of the Bickleigh Vale Farm family - 2 little ducklings!! After mama duck sat dedicated for months on end it was so nice to see these two fluffy ones appear last week Pictured here at 4 days old and 11 days old, they have already had their first swim in the pond and roam around the veggies with their Ma. Look forward to watching them grow up over Summer

04.01.2022 When you've just gotten the soil tilth real fine for sowing carrot seed and you come back to the bed only to find somebody has taken a lovely stroll through it... That somebody wouldn't happen to be in the top right corner would they??.....

04.01.2022 We all hug a lot on the farm and seems the pups are getting into the cuddles too

03.01.2022 Our "Maui Purple" heirloom chillis are thriving at the farm. These dark purple, almost black chillis have had a variety of heat ratings from our farm clan - some said a 5, others a 7.5 (on scale to 10) and you should be able to try some and rate for yourself soon at our stall at Willunga Farmers Market and Adelaide Showground Farmers Market

01.01.2022 Hooray! The creek is flowing on the property again!! I know we've all been grumbling about the rain this winter but we're very grateful for all this water falling on our dry South Australian soil this season. We haven't had to turn the irrigation on for the field beds in over a month! And the farm wolf pack has loved playing in the creek, not to mention the green everywhere, full rainwater tanks & duck and frog symphonies.... So let's enjoy winter while it's here and all its seasonal offerings (we have some beautiful broccoli, baby kale and baby spinach going to market at the moment!) It'll be hot and dry again before we know it. #rainappreciationclub