Ford’s Farm lets visitors pick their own citrus

Located at Laughtondale on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, outside of Wisemans Ferry, NSW, farm resident Nicky Alexander said the 20-hectare citrus farm had been in the Ford family for the past 60 years.

“The owners are very shy people who live in a remote area,” Mrs Alexander said.

“The Ford family is large and full of great nieces and nephews and lots of grandchildren.”

Mrs Alexander said some of the trees on the property had been there for more than 50 years, but that wasn’t their main attraction.

“Our main attraction is our mandarins - the very popular satsuma variety, which are seedless and easy to eat,” she said.

“Korean, Japanese and Chinese people come out here in droves looking for them, because the mandarin variety originated overseas.”

With 1200 lime, orange, kumquat, mandarin and lemon trees on the property, the farm opens on May 28 to the public to pick their own fruit, until the trees are bare.

“We open until all the fruit is gone, which could take anywhere from three weeks to two months,” Mrs Alexander said.

“As soon as the public picks all the fruit, we will prune all the trees.

“We have one crop per year and we don’t plant any more trees because it takes five years for the trees to become viable.”

Mrs Alexander said it was a long process in citrus, as there was a lot of maintenance involved with fertilising.

“We don’t use a lot of chemicals, but we have to by law to keep diseases to a minimum,” Mrs Alexander said.

“The quality of the (fruit) skin isn’t what it should be, but you aren’t eating the skin, it’s the inside that’s beautiful.”

In attempt to estimate how big their mandarin crop would be this year, Mrs Alexander said it was difficult to tell as the trees were so laden with fruit, some of the limbs were breaking under the weight.

In jest, Mrs Alexander said a couple of years ago the farm hosted a bunch of school-aged maths students who (unsuccessfully) tried to count all the trees and decipher how much profit the farm would make.

“They all decided not to become farmers after that day,” she laughed.

“The property had always sent fruit to the market, but it was costing us money to send them and it just was not worth it.

“We opened to the public as a pick-your-own orchard 12 years ago and haven’t looked back.

“We are a simple folk, with a simple farm and we look forward to the public coming and spending the day here.”

Mrs Alexander said the farm was also an learning tool for children.

“It’s an education thing, we want children to learn where food comes from - not in the supermarket,” she said.

“It’s really rewarding to see the look on kids’ faces when they see trees with fruit on it.”

To keep the farm busy for the other months of the year when the pick-your-own season is closed, Mrs Alexander said the farm sold citrus trees other people could grow in their own gardens, complete with free growing advice, and also sold homemade produce.

“Anything we grow we harvest - we have a lot of limes, so I’ve made lime marmalade and lime cordial, which are available for the public to buy,” Mrs Alexander said.

“I’d prefer not to waste them, so we have to be creative.”

She said the Ford family were in the process of a new venture into essential oils, for oil burners and massage therapy. “We try to give people everything from the farm,” she said.

“We have mandarin oil for sale, which is used for the same types of things, but they aren’t edible.” Mrs Alexander said Ford’s Farm hosted a few black sheep, which visitors could feed.

“Black sheep are our thing, over the years we’ve had a ram in, either a Suffolk or a Dorper, they’re bit of a mixed bag and they’re fat as too,” she said.

“We have an area set aside where people can picnic at the farm and we encourage people to try our products before purchasing them.”