There’s an amazing smell that wafts out of the kitchen at Vergone’s Fruit Stall, and you’ll have no problem following your taste buds to this delicious destination. There’s a new café owner in town, Jaime Cocivera (nee Vergone), and the news is traveling like wildfire as their best selling carrot and walnut cake, baked fresh on premises, is becoming the talk of the town among their other delicacies!

The Vergone farm, just outside Dwellingup, is well known to locals, many of whom are regular buyers of the super-fresh produce Jaime and her family have been marketing out of their farm shed. Using both their own farm produce, and that of other local growers, who also supply them with local harvest, as well as fresh produce, the Vergones sell home-made Italian passata and a mouth- watering range of preserves and jams.

"My dad, Lou Vergone, still helps to grow much of the fruit and vegetables we harvest, and is also my mentor in teaching me about orcharding,” explains Jaime. “The fig jam and tomato relish are the popular lines and the demand for our passata is off the charts – we just made double last year’s output and it barely lasted a week.”

During the raspberry and boysenberry season throughout November, you can get amongst the harvest yourself and pick your own berries here. A not to be missed experience for the whole family to enjoy. The motto of the Vergone story is to check in regularly and see what delicious bites and in season goods are on offer!

Continuing on our fresh produce adventures, several hundred metres along the road into Dwellingup is the turn off to Caraholly Orchard. Caraholly is a great story of doing one amazing thing really,
really well. Open one Sunday per month and every Sunday during the school holidays, the family-run farm, which has been owned by the Birmingham family since 1912, welcomes the public from 9am until 2pm.

Hayley and Aaron Birmingham and their team have transformed their lovely property into a must-visit destination which draws a crowd who come for seasonal produce, coffee and tea, food trucks, live music and more - all in the beautiful orchard setting which needs no other window dressing than the seasons of the Murray Shire.