We are the Showers family. A family of five who have taken the long road to creating an intentionally slow orcharding and nursery business which is entrenched in its community, regenerative in its practices, diverse in its fruit varieties and committed to bringing celebration and awe back to food literacy which we believe is the first step in building a localised fair food system.
Getting to know our visitors is really important to us so we’ve created a space that openly invites you to visit the farm and see how it’s done.
Fruit is seasonally available through our farm gate store and pick your own. We predominantly grow apples, pears, raspberries, blackberries, blueberies, currents, quince and cider apples.
We also operate a fruit tree and perennial plant nursery which in addition to being available at the farmgate during harvest season (December – May) is also offered as bare rooted pre ordered sales online from 1 April annually.
We run regular feasts, gatherings, workshops, schools programs and farm tours to put us all a little more in touch with the food we eat and the skills needed to grow it.
Black Barn Farm is a permaculture based horticultural operation. Permaculture is a design system and philosophy that emulates the patterns in nature to holistically and sustainably integrate the physical and social needs of people and the ecosystem.
We seek to maintain a healthy orchard system through maximum diversity of fruiting species and varieties, rootstocks, understory species, soil biology, inter row cover cropping and woodsy mulch supply. We believe healthy nutrient dense food comes from maximum tree nutrition which comes from super healthy soils and that takes time, biomass, biodiversity and carefully managed disturbance.
We are based in Stanley, North East Victoria, Australia. Our orchard is just short of 750 meters above sea level, so damn cool by Australian standards with wet cold winters and occasional snow however still hotish and mostly dry during summer. All up a perfect climate for fruit growing, minus the odd hail storm!
https://www.blackbarnfarm.com.au/