Whitehorse Farmers Market

The Whitehorse Farmers Market has run on the second Sunday of the month since 2006, on the grounds of the Whitehorse Civic Centre at Nunawading. More than sixty vendors come in from around Victoria, and the whole thing is staffed by Rotarian volunteers: all six Rotary clubs in the city plus the Whitehorse Rotaract Club, working one market between them.

Sixty producers, farm origin

The stall list holds to farm-origin and organic food: produce, meats, bread and baked goods, pasta, eggs, chutneys, olive oils, natural products and handmade items, with bacon and egg sandwiches and coffee handling the morning. Sixty-plus vendors is a large monthly market by eastern-suburbs standards, and it works because the civic centre grounds give it room and parking that a school ground or a shopping strip could not. Nearly twenty years of continuous operation is the other measure: monthly markets run by volunteers usually thin out or fold, and this one has held its scale.

The same civic site carries a second monthly market, the Nunawading Arts and Craft Market, on a different weekend. One address, two markets, two entirely different stall lists, so the weekend is the thing to get right. That one runs to handmade craft and art on the fourth Sunday; this one is food, and the two rarely share a stallholder.

Good to know before you go

Second Sunday, 8am to 1pm. Bring bags and both cash and card. There is parking at the civic centre and on the surrounding streets, and Nunawading station is a short walk, so the train is a workable option. An 8am start on a farmers market means the produce moves early, and a five hour window gives plenty of slack after that. Check whether you want this market or the arts and craft one at the same address before you travel. This is Wurundjeri country.