Sunny days and van stresses

Wow, this sunshine all feels a little surreal but also very welcome. Can't believe how much watering we're already having to do! But wearing shorts does feel very good, and the lambs look very content in the sun.

We had a bit of a stressful Tuesday as the (new) van broke down - potentially terminal, still waiting for verdict from garage - fortunately the old trusty small van was ready and waiting but it has made the week a little less straightforward. We have various contingency plans in place for next week but fingers crossed they can fix it! We're just very glad it broke down mid-round and not when Chris was driving back from Manchester with a van full of veg that would not have survived hours waiting for roadside assistance....

Here is a pic of the 'shop' if you haven't popped by yet, still lots to do (one day I might be able to stop saying that!) but it's working. We've got other organic bits in stock too, as we've been promising for ages now, including pasta, stock, tins of tomatoes and cocout milk, olives. All stuff we buy from the wholesaler and use ourselves at home.

In the field:

We harvested 13kg chard, 6kg spinach, 2kg salad, 50 lettuces. Pricked out 120 kale plants and 70 tomato plants. Sowed 200 parsnips in trays, and beetroot and salad direct into the polytunnel. Transplanted 200 lettuces. Started weeding....! Covered a couple more beds with compost. 20 punnets of snow pea shoots on the go too.

In the boxes*:

Small boxes have Prion lettuces (still with root on so if they need a bit of reviving stick them in a jar of water), cherry plum tomatoes, cauliflower, sweet potato, oranges. Regular have purple sprouting broccoli, leeks, hard green cabbage, kohlrabi, Spartan apples (huge - we didn't order these but these are what came in, they're the last of the UK apples and we reckon stew them if you don't want to eat them as they are!), Prion spinach and Prion rainbow chard.

In the shop:

Plenty: Potatoes (mix), carrots, brown/Roscoff onions, cauliflowers, celery, leeks, red peppers, mushrooms

Limited: Cherry plum tomatoes, red cabbage, hard green cabbage, courgettes, Prion spinach, Prion salad, Prion lettuces, purple sprouting broccoli, beetroot, swede, celeriac

Fruit: Bananas, oranges, clementines, lemons, Spartan apples

+ lots of local eggs

+ local Cae Main & Bryn Cochyn apple juice

+ sourdough from Nant y Felin

+ other organic pantry staples

Recipe inspiration:

Ideas for this week include a crunchy coleslaw or salad using the cabbage / carrots and kohlrabi. Riverford's sweet potato & lentil bake also looks worth a try.

have a lovely week

#enjoy that tasty veg

Important stuff:

*The nature of how we order and plan the veg means that boxes can change at the last minute, so if you don't have something that we've mentioned here then we have had to substitute it for something else. If you need any help identifying anything please let us know!

All veg is either grown by us at Prion (not certified organic but organic principles followed) or by farms who are organically certified. We prioritise UK (seasonal) veg. We try to re-use packaging wherever possible to reduce waste.

Please remember to wash all the veg you get from us - ideally a couple of times - we don't wash it before passing it on to you. Because we don't use pesticides, you may find some little 'friends' (!) hanging out on the leaves, we do try to check but sometimes hard to spot them.