Category: 2023

Following the previous blog about the changes in the landscape, this one focuses on maps and historical aerial photos which provide a visual history of the area where the market gardens were located north of the River Torrens until the early 1980s.

In 2007 I saw the first map of the Veneto market garden area in Kidman Park and Flinders Park where the Veneto families farmed. I went to Bolivar to meet Johnny and Eleonora Marchioro on their market garden. Johnny drew a map to indicate where his father and mother, Vittorio and Angelina, had their market garden on Frogmore Road until 1948 when the family moved across the river to White Avenue Lockleys and established their market garden there.

Johnny’s mud map showed the locations of the market gardens worked by other Veneto families on Frogmore Road when he was growing up. He pointed out the Piovesan’s, Tonellato’s, Santin’s, and Antonio and Romilda Ballestrin and the Zalunardo’s on Grange Road. The Berno families were on Valetta Road and Narciso and Maria Ballestrin were on the corner of Valetta Road and Findon Road before Nico and Delia Zampin lived there. Other Ballestrin families worked farms near Findon Road in Flinders Park. There were other families farming in the area and Johnny marked them on the map; Johnny identified other Italians and Anglo Australian families who were market gardeners inn the area and marked on the map, Fazzalari’s, Ursini’s, and on Valetta Road, Ballantyne’s and West’s.

All this was new information for me because I did not know much about this history of the market gardens in the western suburbs of Adelaide and the families who had migrated from the Veneto region. Other Italians like the Recchi, the De Pasquale and Mercurio families had market gardens, and there was also a long history of Chinese men who had vegetable gardens in the area.

The importance of the River Torrens
One of the significant features of all the photos is the River Torrens shown at the bottom. While it was an important source of water, early market gardeners were affected by repeated floods which ruined crops. Ironically, flooding in previous times produced the deposits of rich alluvial soil which the area so productive for growers. Rae Ballantyne’s family owned about seven and a half acres on Findon Road just near the bridge. He had been allocated the land in 1923 after serving in the Army during World War I. Rae spoke about the challenges of living near the River Torrens:

Dad told me that the first year when he moved in, he got flooded out seven times that year … The river was very narrow and full of trees and shrubs I think that is why it got flooded all the time because it just got blocked up with rubbish …

(Rae Ballantyne, OH 872/21, 25 August 2012, 8).

In the late 1930s, the Government diverted the course of the river, widened it and made a channel, ‘Breakout Creek’ to create a sea outlet.

 

 

 

Frankie Ballestrin remembers that his father talked about the modification of the River Torrens which they remembered:

I know that our people were saying that it was hand-built and with draglines and horses and scoops, done in those years … after that they cleaned it out, you see.  When the glasshouses were on it wasn’t flooding anymore.

(Frankie Ballestrin OH 872/7, 12 December 2008, 19, 16)

The rich alluvial soil was an advantage of the River Torrens flood plain and  the market gardeners grew celery close to the river because it was sandy and good loam. Further away from the river, other crops were grown and the market gardeners erected glasshouses so they could grow tomato crops and beans as well crops that needed open land like potatoes and cauliflowers or bunched vegetables such as onions and carrots.

Aerial photos
The City of Charles Sturt provided some aerial photos of the area that give a clear picture of the way that land was used through the decades.

Early photos showed the large area in the now Kidman Park and Flinders Park suburbs used as market gardens and broad acre crops. It is striking to see the few houses dotted around the area amid the flat cultivated land. In the 1930s the area was a mix of landholdings of crops, dairy farms and market gardens of varying sizes and some orchards. The first aerial view was taken in 1935, a time when most of the Veneto families had leased land and were establishing their market gardens in the difficult years of the Depression.

 

 

Later photos showed the changes in the area.
For example, a photo taken in 1979 shows that land used as market gardens has decreased in favour of housing developments. And the photo taken in 2011 is a contrast again. The area is a densely populated inner suburb of Adelaide with some green areas and commercial locations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At events for the Veneto market gardener families and friends, people have always been interested in looking at maps of the area and the location of the market gardens in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. There is nostalgia when people recall the area, the common purpose of growing vegetables for the commercial market and the sense of community particularly for the Veneto group who had made the area they called ‘Lockleys’ the place of settlement in Australia and their second home.

 

Madeleine Regan
12 February 2023

 

 

Big changes are occurring in an area in the western suburbs of Adelaide where several Veneto families once had their market gardens.

 

At present, 12.6 hectares of land along Findon Road between Valetta Road and the River Torrens is being prepared for a large housing development. From the 1960s, this site accommodated the former warehouse for goods that were distributed to supermarkets across South Australia. In June 2021, the Metcash food distribution warehouse moved to another area in Adelaide.

 

 

If you drive past the site now, you’ll see a vast area of demolition.

 

The history of the area
There have been three major changes to the use of this particular land in Kidman Park since it was first inhabited by the First Nations population of the area. They had used the river (Karawirra Parri) and its banks as a source of water, food, shelter and cultural practices for thousands of years.  In the 1830s English settlers developed broad acre farms near the River Torrens in the Lockleys Fulham area. From at least the 1890s, the land has been continually subdivided. Land title records show that a property of 150 acres had been divided into smaller parcels in 1894 by a single landowner. Chinese men had leased small plots of land from around this time and grew a range of vegetables, mainly green-leafed vegetables for sale at market.

The area used as market gardens
By the 1930s when the veneti took up leases, the area was a mix of large landholdings of crops such as lucerne, dairy farms, small intensive vegetable farms and orchards. At that time, apart from the colonial families, smaller owners included returned soldiers who had been allocated land after the First World War. Italians from other regions including Campania and Calabria worked market gardens in the same area.

The Veneto families whose stories have been recorded in the Veneto market gardeners’ oral history project were able to buy the properties that they had leased and they cultivated a range of vegetables – celery, potatoes, cauliflowers, cabbages, lettuces, spinach and other greens, and in glasshouses, tomatoes and beans.

The market gardeners who worked that land were: the Ballantyne family, Daminato family, Narciso and Maria Ballestrin, Nico and Delia Zampin, the West family, Yick Kee, Gino and Jean Berno, the Santin families, Albert and Elvira Berno, Pietro and Antonietta Berno.

When the market gardener families sold their properties in the 1960s, the land was subdivided for housing and some commercial use like the food distribution warehouse. In the following photo, it is possible to see that market gardens still existed when the Kidman Park Girls Technical High School was built in 1964.

Changes to the area
People interviewed for the Veneto market gardeners’ oral history project have seen enormous changes in the Findon Road – Valetta Road site. It has moved from being a semi-rural area with large market garden properties with small number of houses on properties, to a neighbourhood subdivided and developed in 1960s – a suburb with single dwellings and gardens and new schools to the existence of the large food distribution warehouse. Within the next few years, the area will have changed again –  a development with medium to high density living and some commercial use on the land that had previously been cultivated by the market gardeners.

Plans for the future
In the initial draft Master Plan for 410-450 Findon Road, Kidman Park, created by Fairland, a residential developer in South Australia and Queensland, the rezoning plan would result in up to 400 residences on the site. The draft concept plans were for mixed use with higher density residential development with some homes and higher density dwellings in townhouses up to a maximum height of five storeys in one area. Some shops, commercial services and a child care centre were also part of the plan.

After a two-month period of consultation in 2022, it was proposed that building heights be limited to a maximum of four storeys and placement of two and three level buildings be modified.

Telling the stories
Photos and plans tell stories about a parcel of land and record changes that occur over many years and several generations. On this site which was influenced by the River Torrens, transformations have created layers of history. The oral histories of the generation who were raised in families on the land near Findon Road and Valetta Road offer vivid accounts of the market gardener community that cultivated vegetables for the South Australian and Victorian markets. Two Veneto families had had their market gardens on the corner of Findon Road and Valetta Road, Maria and Narciso Ballestrin, followed by Nico and Delia Zampin.

Jimmy Ballestrin remembers growing up on that land with his parents, Narciso and Maria, his siblings, Lina, Silvano and Norina and the hard work of the whole family in the market gardens:

My mother and father both worked the glasshouses, probably I’d like to say equal, but maybe not quite equal because my mother would have to then go and cook and do all the household duties. Yes, we were taught that we had to help, from a young age, and thinking back on it, we worked very hard as kids, but thought nothing of it because all my friends did exactly the same, and I didn’t hear any of them complain.

We didn’t seem to think it was a chore at all, it was just something that was done.

(Jimmy Ballestrin, OH 872/15, 6 June 2011)

References:
Engagement Report by the City of Charles Sturt, City of Charles Sturt Kidman Park Residential and Mixed Use Code Amendment (Part-Privately Funded)
August 2022 (Please note this document is over 400 pages.)  https://www.charlessturt.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/1193717/Item-4.20-Appendix-2-Engagement-Report-Kidman-Park.pdf

Planning SA – Fairland Master Plan for 410-450 Findon Road, Kidman Park Master Plan (no date) https://plan.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1026582/Kidman_Park_Residential_and_Mixed_Use_CA_-_Attachment_J.PDF

 

Madeleine Regan
29 January 2023

At the moment I’m enjoying the tastes and smells of a great tomato season in Adelaide. I’m thinking about the hard work the Veneto market gardeners undertook in the glasshouses – including dismantling and putting them together again every two or so years before pesticides were used. I’m basing this blog on one I wrote in December 2019 to highlight the importance of glasshouses in the working lives of the market gardeners.

The Veneto market gardener families had glasshouses on their land although it was a form of cultivation that they had not seen used in the Veneto region. They grew tomatoes and beans in the glasshouses at Lockleys. Before chemicals were introduced to manage problems with disease, the market gardeners had to shift the glasshouses every couple of years to ensure the soil was not infected.

Johnny Marchioro explained the dimensions of the glasshouses:

 

Single glasshouses [were] only 15 foot wide and 112 foot long … The middle of the glasshouse would only be about 6 foot 6, the side would be about 4 foot 6 … every two years they used to pull them down … (OH 872/1, 28 July 2008)

 

Following are some memories of glasshouses of six other people extracted from their interviews for the Veneto market gardeners’ oral history project. The recordings are held in the State Library of South Australia. You can also listen to the interviews on this website on the respective family pages.

Frankie Ballestrin (OH 872/7, 12 December 2008)
We used to change glasshouses at the age of 12, 13 … My cousin and myself, homework … was to drill holes and put up a row of posts each night we come home from school.  Our parents would prepare the rails on the grounds and that was the start of setting up your glasshouse.  And we put the rail in, then they’d have the rail on top of it and then we’d come home and nail the rafters in.  You know, they’d show us what to do, sort of thing.  And then carry on from there.  And then slide up the glass and all the rest.  It wasn’t easy.

 

They were very low in those years … They were only two glass high.  You could barely get in with a tractor ….  Before, we used to dig them by hand. We used to dig them by hand with a fork.

 

 

Assunta Giovannini nee Tonellato (OH 872/6, 15 July 2010) Assunta speaks about her aunt and uncle and their market garden:

Well tomatoes, they mainly had glasshouses, I think they would have had about twenty-five glasshouses, something like that. They used to grow tomatoes and beans in the glasshouse, and then they’d grow vegetables, we used to grow potatoes, and I don’t remember, maybe cauliflower, some cabbages, I’m not very sure about that, you know, but I know the main crop was the tomatoes and the beans that were grown in the glasshouses, and the potatoes – when the potato season was on they used to plant the potatoes outside – and this was all virtually, mainly it was all along Frogmore Road that they had the glasshouses.

 

Lena Moscheni nee Rossetto (OH 872/32, 28 August 2014) Lena speaks about her father, Gelindo Rossetto:

Growing tomatoes was his thing. [He had] glasshouses, and I remember he had a horse called Beauty, it was a race horse. He had like a sledge, a real big one, and when he’d go into the glasshouses and put the tomatoes in the boxes then put them on this sledge, me and Aldo used to sit on them and the horse would drag us along. I remember that.

 

 

Diana Panazzolo nee Santin  (OH 872/27, 13 September 2013)
And in the shed, in the big shed, all one side of the shed was where they’d grade the tomatoes. And so, the men would get the buckets and pour them, pour the bucket on this shelf which would sort of roll down, it was on this slant, and you’d have your half box here, another half box, another half box, you know all your little ones would go here, all your medium would go here, all the big ones would go somewhere else, and then the greener ones would go somewhere else.  And that’s how they used to grade the tomatoes all by hand.

Dino Piovesan (OH 872/17, 23 September 2011)

Back in those days the tomatoes would get diseases, okay, and then there was no chemicals to rid the soil of diseases like we have nowadays – you get chemical fumigants and so on that you can rid the diseases in the soil. So therefore, when they were there for a year or two, and the soil became so disease-ridden that you wouldn’t get a viable crop out of them, they had to be shifted. So, they would just be shifted post, pane of glass by pane of glass, and it had to be done in the hottest months of the year, after the last crops were out, in January and February. Again, I can remember as kids we dearly would have loved to go to the beach, but sometimes there just had to be glasshouses that had to be shifted. The glasses were that hot, you’d pick up two or three glasses at a time and you would almost drop them because they would be sitting in the sun, and really so hot that they were hard to handle.

Anna Santin nee Mattiazzo (OH 872/24, 17 April 2013)

 

The crops used to finish around about December. January, February … you had to take down all the glasses and put them in boxes so they could shift the posts in a different part, and the men used to, the men used to be inside with us women on the outside pushing the glasses up. Oh, it was very, very hot … you’d burn your hands just about, and it had to be done until after, a few years afterwards, they used to inject the dirt in the glasshouses so they didn’t have to be shifted anymore.

 

 

Madeleine Regan
15 January 2022