Southern Harvest Farmers Market

Southern Harvest Farmers Market sets up in Bungendore's Village Square every Saturday from 9am to 12pm, and every stallholder selling there has to have grown or made what's on the table themselves. That producer-only rule, enforced by the Southern NSW Harvest Co-operative that runs the market, rules out resellers and keeps the stalls tied directly to farms and kitchens across the Southern Tablelands and the wider ACT region.

A market built on a producer-only rule

Regular stallholders trade from as far as Braidwood and Michelago. Branch and Burrow brings pasture-raised meat and eggs from its Braidwood family farm on the last Saturday of each month, while Paddock Products sells seasonal fruit and vegetables grown around Braidwood and Araluen on the second and fourth Saturdays. From the Paddock supplies organic produce and fresh flowers, Bees R Us brings honey from the Braidwood district, Capital Garlic sells its award-winning chemical-free garlic in season, and Pacawoolly, a small alpaca stud in Michelago, sells hand-spun yarn and knitted garments between April and September. Jerrabatt Gully Organics, growing leafy greens in nearby Wamboin, and Village Coffee Roastery, which grinds beans fresh on the spot, round out a stall mix that runs from vegetables and free-range eggs through to honey, garlic and coffee.

Market at a glance

SaturdaysTrading day

9am-12pmTrading hours

23 Malbon StVillage Square venue

4,745Bungendore population (2021)

Part of a food co-operative that spans the region

The market is one arm of the Southern NSW Harvest Co-operative, a farmer-led, non-distributing co-op working to grow local food supply across the ACT and south-east NSW. The co-operative's own membership region runs from Temora and Young in the north down to Bega Valley and Bombala on the far south coast, a deliberately wide catchment built to connect regional growers with buyers rather than serve Bungendore alone. The same organisation also runs the annual Bungendore Harvest Festival each April, which drew between 3,000 and 8,000 visitors in its first year in 2017 and has continued since.

Stallholders and shoppers alike can keep buying outside market hours at the adjoining Southern Harvest Community Produce Store, opened in Village Square in late 2023 and staffed by volunteers who stock local eggs, honey, preserves and more from Wednesday to Sunday. Bungendore itself sits on the Kings Highway about 38km east of Canberra, close enough that the market draws shoppers from across the ACT border as well as the town's own population of under 5,000.