C & D Camilleri Pty Ltd

About C & D Camilleri Pty Ltd (41)

It all started 30 years ago, when my father Charlie left school at the age of 15 to become a market gardener (specialising in strawberries) alongside his father, my grandfather.

Now I help my father and mother like my brothers and sister did.

Each year we go through a similar process.

In February the ground is prepared with fertilizers and plastic is laid, this is a family event.

In April our plants arrive from Victoria and they are planted one by one by hand. Again another family event.

For the next few months my dad does the hard work and looks after the plants by watering continuously until roots are established, this is very important. By May you will see the flowers developing, this means picking time is coming up soon depending if we get a heavy frost to set us back a few months.

In June we start the picking it is a bit slower to start with but by September we start to get into the swing of things all the picking and packing we do ourselves and all by hand.
Since the family has grown there are more hands to help do the work so over the years we have expanded from just strawberries to other produce. When mum and dad were growing up they helped their parents grow spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, beans, peas, potatoes, capsicum, garlic and whatever was in season. So we have gone back to those vegetables as that is what we have knowledge on. We have tried all different fruit and vegetables; there is nothing better than fresh produce.

We then take our strawberries and other produce to local growers markets which is where you will see us. The whole family is out and about at different markets.

What we sell at the Farmers Market

Strawberries, Mulberries.

Garlic, Broad Beans, Snow Peas, Cherry Tomatoes, Round Marrow.