Schreuers’ celery crop stays high if not dry

DON’T panic, Schreurs & Sons’ veggies, being grown by the truckload out at Middle Tarwin, have been unaffected by the floods. Phew!

It’s not the sort of thing you’d like to have seen after the carnage in the NSW Hunter, the Lockyer Valley in Queensland, even East Gippsland and other key veggie growing areas in recent months, driving up the price of Iceberg Lettuce, for example, to as much as $12.

“No,” according to Adam Schreuers, “we’re fine!”

“We’ve been out there long enough now to be aware of the areas that can flood, and we tend to avoid them for our winter plantings. It’s been wet but it hasn’t affected our crops, thank goodness,” said Adam this week.

“We’re harvesting celery at the moment, and they look great, but it has been a bit slower going in the wet conditions.”

Soon they’ll be looking at their summer plantings of baby spinach, rocket, leaks and Asian greens; all of them in peak demand in the marketplace, according to Mr Schreuers.

“It’s been terrific out there. We’re engaging with the local community, through the likes of the Tarwin Football Netball Club, and we’ve got our fingers crossed there,” he said of the upcoming finals.

“We’ve had great local support.”

Schreuers employ upwards of 50 people onsite at Middle Tarwin, including teams of pickers employed at their other farms, but also locals where they can get them.

And fortunately, despite the decade-high flood in the Tarwin River during the past week, they’ve been able to keep production up, doing their best to supply the strong demand from the supermarkets in the face of supply shortages for other popular greens.

Schreuers’ celery graces shelves and produce boxes all over Victoria, interstate and also goes overseas.