The Date farm was designed with curving avenues of palms, to create a wonderful avenue of productive trees in the desert fringes of Charleville, in Queensland.
Visionary owner Mark Hampel and fellow Lutheran pastors helped John Mongard and a small team of landscapers to build the waterways, lakes and plant the date palms. The water and irrigation system were designed in collaboration with Jim Phillips, one of Australia’s significant water planners. The system recently won an international award for best irrigation system using recycled water. The whole of Charleville’s treated wastewater, which once went straight into the desert, is now cleaned and filtered through a system of waterways and wetlands, the water then further filtered and used to water the date palms. This project shows how resilient food farms can be sustainably made in small regional towns.
