Chinese Market Gardens, Heritage agricultural site in La Perouse, Australia.

The Chinese Market Gardens in La Perouse stretch along Bunnerong Road and are used to grow seasonal vegetables and herbs. The plots are worked without modern machinery or elaborate irrigation systems, showing traditional cultivation methods that have survived across generations.

The site lies on Crown land at Bunnerong Road, where Aboriginal people fished and left rock engravings, grinding grooves and middens before the 1780s. From 1902 the government granted special leases for market gardens and poultry farms: James Thomas Smith took 15 acres that year, William Foster Anderson 10 acres in 1904, and James Hancock 10 acres in 1905, expanding onto Anderson's portion in 1906. The gardens were added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 13 August 1999.

Chinese families have farmed these plots for many generations, bringing agricultural techniques from Guangdong Province to this part of Sydney. You can see how the land reflects their practices and how these gardens remain a working expression of their farming heritage.

The gardens lie along Bunnerong Road at La Perouse, on Crown land managed by the NSW Department of Industry. Access is on foot from the road; the plots are working farmland, so stay on paths and do not enter cultivated beds. The site is open to view year-round, but the soil and crops are the reason to come.

These gardens are among the last surviving examples of traditional market gardening within Sydney, where growing methods are over 150 years old. Many visitors are surprised to learn that the plots remain actively worked by families who still grow fresh vegetables for local markets today.