By Emily-Rose Toohey
Stanthorpe is known for being a hub of great food and wine, and as a result, there are many, many farms in the Granite Belt area.
Nicoletti Orchards is one of these apple farms and was first established in 1950.
Toni Nicoletti runs the farm with her partner Daniel – his grandparents were the ones who first established the farm after moving to Stanthorpe from Italy.
Over the last twenty plus years the couple have been married, Toni said she has learnt an incredible amount about apple growing.
But she was no stranger to farming after growing up on a cattle farm.
During the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival, the Nicoletti’s hosted farm tours where they talked to and showed interested groups of visitors the over 70-year-old property.
“We always like to make sure when people leave they’ve learnt about apple farming,” Toni said.
“We were happy with the numbers and it was good business.”
However, this isn’t the only time curious people can see the incredible apple growing space comprising of 100 000 trees, which she said require a lot of watering, trimming, and looking after.
Toni explained that they started these ‘pick your own apple’ tours last year, with the farm shop also being open to locals and tourists from 10am to 1pm, Friday through to Sunday.
“We’ve been trying to keep the groups smaller by selling tickets and by people booking times for picking,” she said.
As a staple of Stanthorpe’s renowned apple growing district, Toni said Nicoletti’s sell their produce to Woolworths and the general market system in Brisbane
“We grew Royal Galas at the end on January, and Fuji, Red Delicious, and Granny Smith among others at the moment,” she said of their apple growing.
Nicoletti’s is part of the Granite Belt’s long farming history and has been family owned and manged from generation to generation – let’s hope for another 70 years of apple growing success.
