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Hello and welcome to Marvick Farms!
We are Mark Andrew and Vickie Shina– a husband and wife team, and owners of Marvick Farms. In 2000, we purchased 100 acres in Red Gully as our retirement plan, and what began as a passion project catapulted us and our desert limes into the limelight as pioneers in Western Australia’s native citrus and bushfoods industry.
With Mark’s career as a chef and Vickie’s training as a nurse, growing Australian native citrus seemed like a no-brainer. Every year, more and more Australians are discovering this “new superfood” that’s been celebrated by Aboriginal people for thousands of years. With incredible antioxidant properties and unique flavor profiles, this bushfood is loved by everyone who tries it. While Indigenous Australians have used bush medicine for thousands of years, scientists are just realizing the incredible power and potency of bushfood, which offers many of the healing properties of pharmaceuticals without the side effects. We are proud to be a part of an industry that’s promoting healing through food.
We are excited to play a part in bringing native superfoods to the world. Marvick Farms desert limes are exported around the world to be used by distilleries, cosmetics companies, and the pharmaceutical industry. These little desert limes have the capacity to change the world, and we can’t wait for you to try them!
Vicki and Mark on the farm
Most of the country thinks of Western Australia as a whole lot of red dirt, and they’re not completely wrong. But we know that with patience and persistence, interesting desert adaptations of Australian native citrus grow in the harsh outback landscape. Desert lime trees originated in the outback and are immune to the scorching summers and chilly winters.
As one of only five commercial Australian bush lime growers in Australia, we tend to around 4,000 trees which produce five different varieties of bush lime: ruby limes, golden limes, finger limes, and two types of desert lime. With a short harvesting season during the hottest time of the year, we’ll collect over six tonnes of fruit over the course of 10 days. Since desert limes have a short shelf life, the harvest is frozen before being shipped throughout the country and around the world.
Proponents of bush tucker love to use Australian native citrus to add flavor to fish, elevate gin and tonics, and bake into desserts. We make our own relishes and marmalades that we think taste great on toast, added to marinades, and shaken into a cocktail.
While bushfood is a recent trend in high-end dining establishments, Aboriginal people have known the secret healing properties of the foods grown in this soil for thousands of years. In addition to their unique flavor, native bush limes are known to strengthen immune systems and reduce inflammation. Desert limes contain the highest vitamin C content of any citrus in the world, ten times the concentration of calcium of a blueberry, and are rich in folate, antioxidants, and lutein.
Whether you’ve discovered desert limes for their healing properties or their flavor, we’re glad you’re here and we hope you’ll help us spread the word about Marvick Farms and Australian native citrus!