Week 45: What's happening
We're rattling through November, and the woolly jumpers are definitely back out of the cupboard.
This weekend we've got a couple who are hoping to start a veg box business visiting the field to see what they can learn from our 3 years of doing what we're doing. They're just in the process of buying land and so at the very start of the journey, but hopefully we can give them some pointers. It's also looking very likely we'll have another local organic veg supplier soon which is fab.
This pic is from a couple of weeks ago but the polytunnel looks so good I just wanted to share! Who would have thought 3 years ago we were veg-growing rookies?! Although not quite playing at the level of some of our suppliers, like the rather large Bedlam Organic Farm in the Fens. Here's a little video telling you a bit about them.
This week we've been mainly letting the land recover from the deluge! We've harvested the last of our squash and covered the beds for the winter, and had a week off harvesting other veg to let some of our leafy plants grow some more - we should be harvesting quite a bit next week.
Eat Your Greens veg boxes:
Small boxes have got sweet potatoes, Savoy cabbage, Palermo peppers, kohlrabi and apples. Regular boxes have cavalo nero kale, leeks, red kuri squash, parsnips, peppers, broccoli and clementines.
Potatoes are either Charlotte or red Rudolph, apples are either Jongored Red or Orleans Reinette.
Sadly, the UK onion crop has failed this year - we normally buy onions from a particular UK farm until March but the damp August has rotted them all and they already have none left. We are completely gutted for them, as well as other farms growing onions who are all in the same boat. As we mentioned last week the UK squash season hasn't been a good one either, nor has the apple season - fewer apples means we're having to buy in citrus from Spain much earlier than we normally would do. Some of the clementines are coming in green, but they taste great so don't take any notice of the skin!
The Vale Grocer shop:
Plenty of: savoy cabbages, UK broccoli (UK season ends soon), brussels sprouts, red / golden / chioggia beetroot, purple / orange carrots, Charlotte potatoes, mixed squash, red palermo peppers, brown / red onions (sadly, last of the UK ones - see note above), purple / Roscoff / Spanish garlic, fresh ginger
Limited: cauliflower, purple kohlrabi, chestnut mushrooms, cavalo nero, parsnips, red peppers, some Prion tomatoes
Fruit: oranges, bananas, apples - Orleans Reinette / Court Pendu Plat / Winston / Jonagold Red, lemons (2)
We could harvest tomatoes, salad and leeks on Friday morning if people want them so please let us know otherwise we probably won't have them in.
+ local free-range eggs
+ local Bryn Cochyn and Cae Main apple juice
+ local sourdough bread from Nant y Felin
Recipe inspiration:
Think I may have shared this one before, but this Meera Sodha recipe is fab - Savoy cabbage, black kale and potato subji. Not sure how magic it is but there's a recipe here for jazzing up your broccoli if you're someone who needs it jazzed up! If you have any tomatoes left and want to make chutney here's a good recipe.
Definitely not wanting to get anywhere near politics here, but we always enjoy reading what Guy from Riverford organic veg boxes has to say and here's his (topical, COP 26) letter to Planet Earth if you haven't already read it.
have a good week