A hobby-turned-business is bearing fruit for a Ngatea couple.
Lisa and Bert Gruythuysen are the owners of the Ngatea Strawberry Patch, a boutique berry farm which has steadily expanded since its humble beginnings in 2024.
Faced with the question of how to utilise their nearly-6000 square metre paddock on River Rd, they began experimenting with different strawberry varieties.
“We started with one row, 60 metres, and then next year we had three rows. And the year after, six,” Bert said.
“The second year, we’d just sell from a table.”
The small paddock currently boasts 780 metres of strawberry plants across 12 rows, housed in an innovative growing system imported from the Netherlands.
The plants are suspended above the ground in rows of channels, with the grass providing a cooling effect from below and coverings above to protect from frost.
“The system is really designed to create a healthy plant environment, and it creates a bit of a microclimate with the airflow coming through,” Lisa said.
“And it’s off the ground, so you don’t have to bend over to pick them.”
There is very little waste in the operation.
“[It has] a dripline that gets in the water, and then we catch the water again and it all gets recycled again. So, we don’t waste fertiliser and water,” Bert said.
“We’re not getting plastic waste… it’s a more modern way of growing.”
And they’ve even found a use for blemished strawberries, making their own strawberry jam and balsamic vinegar.
As well as selling punnets from their home, the couple now has a small food truck which they use at local sport events and markets to sell fresh berry punnets and chocolate-covered strawberries. And for the first time this year, they will also be offering real fruit strawberry ice-creams.
The couple said they are focused on taste over quantity.
“We’ve got a variety that’s just a sweet, tasty strawberry,” Bert said.
“The quality and the flavour, that’s what we both want,” Lisa added.
The Ngatea Strawberry Patch is open right across summer, although its hours will vary depending on the weather.
“You need a few days with good sun to get a good run of strawberries so you’ve got enough to be open… We put our opening hours on Facebook.”
