Mundaring Garden and Farmers Market
A weekly growers and gardeners market in a Perth Hills sculpture park, owned and run by the town's own chamber of commerce.
About this market
The Mundaring Garden and Farmers Market runs every Saturday morning in a sculpture park, and it is owned outright by the Mundaring Chamber of Commerce rather than a market operator. That is an unusual arrangement, and it explains a lot about the market's shape: the businesses of the town have a direct stake in whether Saturday morning in Mundaring is worth turning up for.
Growers and gardeners, weekly
The site is Mundaring Sculpture Park on Jacoby Street, in the Perth Hills about 35 kilometres east of the city. The stalls split between local growers, gardeners and artisan makers, so a run through the market covers seasonal fruit and vegetables, garden plants and specialty products in roughly equal measure. Live music runs alongside. Weekly is the key detail here, because most Perth Hills markets are monthly and a weekly one changes how people use it: this is a shopping trip rather than an outing. Community Bank Mundaring and the Shire of Mundaring both back the market, which is what keeps a free weekly event viable in a town of this size.
Market at a glance
A sculpture park is a better market venue than it sounds. The works stay put through the week and the stalls thread between them on Saturday, so the site has something to look at even on a quiet morning, and the market never has to build an atmosphere from scratch.
Mundaring is the starting point of one of the great engineering works of the nineteenth century. The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, designed by Western Australia's chief engineer Charles Yelverton O'Connor, pumps water from Mundaring Weir roughly 560 kilometres east to Kalgoorlie. When it was completed in 1903, a year after O'Connor's death, it was the longest water main in the world and the first major pipeline anywhere built of steel. Eight steam pumping stations pushed the water uphill the whole way.
What to know before Saturday
Every Saturday, 8am to 12pm, and the four hour window is genuinely the window: this is a morning market and the good produce moves early. Bring bags and cash alongside a card. Jacoby Street is the main road through Mundaring and parking is on the surrounding streets. The hills sit several degrees cooler than Perth and can be properly cold on a winter morning, so dress for it. Mundaring Weir itself is a twenty minute drive south and makes an obvious second stop. This is Whadjuk Noongar country.
Frequently Asked Questions
- When is the Mundaring Garden and Farmers Market on?
- Every Saturday from 8am to 12pm, at Mundaring Sculpture Park on Jacoby Street. It is a weekly market rather than a monthly one.
- Who runs the market?
- It is owned and operated by the Mundaring Chamber of Commerce, with support from Community Bank Mundaring and the Shire of Mundaring.
- What is the garden half of the name about?
- Gardeners trade alongside the food growers, so the stalls include garden plants and seedlings as well as seasonal fruit and vegetables and specialty products.