Extract from Village Voice 7, Spring 2006

Whenever I drive in to Hahndorf I look forward to leaving the cares of work behind and visiting the Hahndorf Vegetable Market.

I find it a most welcome place where I can purchase a fresh salad for dinner or stock up on sacks of onions and boxes of tomatoes for sauce making or maybe seasonal fruits for chutney, jams and jellies.

The Hahndorf Vegetable Market is a Palma family business.  Peter Palma came to Australia in 1969 whilst his brother Fred came in 1984.  They married Maria and Marisa, Adelaide girls.

In 1985 the family moved to Hahndorf and bought the land, then a dairy, from Mr. Percy.

The Palma family have carried on a Southern Italian family tradition of farming and horticulture and, coupled with hard work, they have developed a very busy market garden and fresh produce market.

The surrounding fields of spinach, beetroots, corn, cabbages, cauliflowers and flowers are visible from the road and are still worked by hand.  Alongside the Vegetable Market is a small productive olive grove.  The olives are picked, pressed and bottled in Willunga by a Palma uncle and then sold in the Vegetable Market.

The Hahndorf Vegetable Market supports food producers and manufacturers from the districts in and around Hahndorf. 

Hill residents and visitors from afar can but local South Australian produce such as cheeses and yoghurts, local small goods, bacon and mettwurst, jams, preserves and seasonal luxuries such as berries.

The other pleasant thing to ponder as I wind along the freeway from the city of Adelaide is that the Hahndorf Vegetable Market employs sixteen local people;  who all present as fine examples of cheerful and well-mannered young Australian men and women.

I know that if, after a busy day at  work, I need a helpful hand to carry my load to the car boot someone will be there, with an enthusiastic smile.

These are cheerful things to thinks about on the way home to Hahndorf.

Maureen Gordon