Tallarook Farmers Market

The Tallarook Farmers Market has run since 2009, on the first Sunday of every month except January, in and around a hall that has been the social centre of the town for more than a century. It is organised by the Tallarook Mechanics Institute Committee rather than a commercial operator, which is why the market and the building share a calendar.

Producers from the Goulburn country

Tallarook sits at the foothills of the Tallarook Ranges, less than an hour north of Melbourne and a few minutes from Seymour, in country that grows a lot more than its size suggests. The stall list runs to seasonal fruit and vegetables, eggs, bread, mushrooms, cheese, beef, pork and lamb, wine and beer, olives and olive oil, pasta, honey, ferments, cereals, jams and preserves, chocolate and pastries. Local artisans set up alongside the food producers with handmade work, there is live music, and Rafael's Coffee handles the roasting. The market describes itself as having survived and thrived on the loyalty of its regulars and its producers, which is a fair summary of how a monthly market in a hamlet keeps going for fifteen years.

The market is run by the committee that manages the hall, so the money and the volunteer hours circle back into the building rather than out of the district. Stallholders are drawn from the surrounding farms and kitchens rather than trucked in, and the scale stays deliberately small.

Worth knowing before you go

First Sunday, 9am to 1pm, with no market in January. Bring bags and cash, since a market this size will not have card facilities on every stall. Parking is on Main Road and the surrounding streets. Tallarook is on the Great Victorian Rail Trail, so a market morning combines easily with a ride or a walk, and Seymour is close enough to make a half day of it. This is Taungurung country.