When landscape architect and botanist Greg Straw launched the original Fourways Farmers Market his idea was to introduce Joburg to a relaxed picnic park, in the heart of the built-up Fourways suburb in north Joburg. The market was a hit from the start, and soon its popularity outgrew the space, with numbers of weekend visitors growing from a few hundred to a few thousand catered for by more than 80 independent food vendors. 

The relaxed picnic park became a crush, a fun crush, with great food, and plenty of cocktails but it was hell to find parking and then run the gauntlet across the busy 'freeway' that separates it from its antithesis, the Toscana-Afrikana-styled Montecasino casino complex across the road.

Greg Straw was on the hunt for a suitable piece of land – and he found it – an 18-hectare expanse within the Modderfontein Reserve (the old Val Bonne Estate), a 265-hectare privately-owned space said to be the second-largest public park in the Gauteng province (the largest is the 680hectare Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve in south Joburg).

The Modderfontein Reserve is a conservation area and within its open sprawl of grassland are a number of dams and hills, and portions of the Modderfontein Spruit. It's a magnet for bikers, walkers and trail runners and is also a fine destination for birdwatching (contact expert twitcher Raymond Rampolokeng from Bay of Grace Tours for guided birdwatching tours).  

The Fourways Farmers Market is now a 27-minute drive from its original site, which is soon to be shortened for those coming from Sandton as a new road will be opened from Linbro Park. It encompasses an open-air food market with more than 100 vendors (with protection from inclement weather), an outdoor farmers' market, picnic lawns, South Africa's longest bar, a  wedding venue and an amphitheatre ideal for large concerts. There are also plans for a brewery, an organic restaurant and a bakery. All this with a view of the water, and across the dam to the open veldt of the Reserve. 

The three heritage buildings on the Modderfontein Reserve site, original barns and a farmhouse, are all being incorporated into the plans. Wide avenues have been landscaped and trees added, while the food vendors are a careful selection from more than 600 applicants as Straw is fixed on the idea that you should know who made your food and is dead set against generic offerings (don't get him started). 

Note that Modderfontein is a private reserve and you will need to pay R30 per adult, and R15 per kid, at the entrance to access the property. For the market follow signs for the Val Bonne venue. 

Market open times
Open Fri 15:30–22:30, Sat, Sun 09:00–18:00.