Newsletter - 15th June 2007

Friday 15th June 2007

Welcome back to some lovely fresh salad greens, including lettuce, rocket, chard, beetroot, radish and spring onion! There are two varieties of potato for you to sample – Pentland Javelin, which is the round one with white flesh and Charlotte, which is the more elliptical one with distinctly yellow flesh (stop press: the packhouse have just said that they ran out of Charlotte – sorry to those of you who didn’t get them, you have had double the Pentland Javelin instead). The sugarsnap peas are eaten pods and all - these need the top of the stem bending over and pulling downwards to remove any marginal stringiness - this may sound dreadful but they are absolutely succulently delicious (as testified by Tom, David & James) and the fatter the peas inside, the sweeter they are. The fennel bulb is great either chopped into your salad, or the bulb can be braised or steamed gently and eaten as a whole vegetable.

Over the "hungry gap" we have been frantically busy sowing hundreds of thousands of seeds and have started transplanting these out into the fields. Field cultivations to create the appropriate seed beds are also ongoing, seemingly at night times as we work shifts around the children and school hours! We had May weather in April and April’s weather in May and today, seemingly, a sub-tropical monsoon. The mainly cold nights (only recently warming up) have delayed our field crops, so with the exception of the potatoes, all the contents of today’s box is from the polytunnels. The tunnels are also full of tomatoes, aubergines and peppers as well as basil and coriander. We did have the added excitement of an entire local dairy herd exploring the polytunnel area and one of the veg fields recently, which had me hopping madly around trying to keep cows out of opened tunnels, (apologies to those who heard the choice language) and Phil had to recultivate the field to try to eradicate the hoof imprints which aren’t so good for seeding into!

Whilst we have been busy in the tunnels and fields, Chris has been busy in the office and everyone should have received final statements and extra reminders. If you are one of the few who have not yet settled for last season’s vegetables, please be sure to do so this week! Next week, please look out for either an email, or a sheet in your box, which will remind you all how the box scheme works. If you have given us your e-mail address (most of you) but are not receiving e-mails from us please do let Chris know ASAP. Thanks.

Enjoy your vegetables, all the best,

Phil, Helen, Tom, David and James and team.