Lake Howard Farms 

Lake Howard Farms is a small, family run farm in Lockrose, on the banks of the Lockyer Creek in the fertile Lockyer Valley, Queensland. Passed from father to son, it has moved on from growing broad acre crops of machine harvested vegetables to being a small crop gourmet vegetable farm. All of our gourmet vegetables are planted, picked and packed by hand.

You will not find vast acreages of lettuce and broccoli here. What we grow are not the ordinary vegetables. We try things that other growers may not have even heard of.

And we do them well.

Darren’s passion is to take a relatively unheard of vegetable variety and work with it, feeding and nurturing until it is the very best that he can produce. The failure of a particular planting block to respond as desired can render him into fits of despair. He takes his vegetables that personally. His partner, Bec is a dedicated vegetarian. All of the vegetables grown here regularly find themselves on our dinner table. We are constantly on the lookout for new and delicious vegetables to grow and cook.

We are a Quality Assured farm, with daily and monthly checks taking place to ensure that food safety and quality is not compromised, and yearly external audits conducted to maintain accreditation. Produce and irrigation water is externally tested at independent laboratories at regular intervals.

Environment and sustainability is also very important. Crops are rotated and what was a vegetable field last year will be growing lucerne or grains this year. Much effort is put into improving our soil at all times. Fertilisers are sourced from organic suppliers and cover crops are grown to be ploughed back into the soil to provide soil strengthening humus.