Ballan Farmers Market

Ballan sits on the old Melbourne to Ballarat road, close enough to both that neither claims it. Its farmers market has run on the second Saturday of the month since November 2011, 9am to 1pm at 73 Inglis Street, and it has become the reason a fair number of people from Bacchus Marsh, Gordon and Greendale point their cars at Ballan on a Saturday morning.

Producers first, with a scone as the reward

Twenty-five or more stallholders set up, and the emphasis is on people who grew or made the thing they are selling. Seasonal fruit and vegetables, meat, eggs, honey, preserves, artisan breads and pastries, plants and seedlings, and a handful of prepared-food vendors. The bread is the item people plan around, and it is gone before noon more often than not. What lifts the morning above a straightforward shop is the CWA, which runs Devonshire teas at the market, so there is somewhere to sit down with a scone once the bags are full.

One thing to get straight before you set out: Ballan runs two markets and they are not the same event. This is the farmers market on the second Saturday, run with a producer focus. The Ballan Lions Community Market is a separate operation with the broader general-market mix you would expect from a Lions market. Directory listings mix the two up regularly, and the address is the giveaway rather than the name.

Good to know before you go

Second Saturday, 9am to 1pm, and the bread and the best produce go early. Bring bags and some cash, although most producers take cards these days. Ballan is about an hour from Melbourne on the Western Freeway and 25 minutes from Ballarat, with a station on the Ballarat line a short walk from Inglis Street, so this is one of the easier country farmers markets to do without a car. The site is flat and grassed with street parking along Inglis Street. Leave time for the Devonshire tea. This is Wadawurrung country.