Newsletter 30th and 31st August 2007

Great, summer really has arrived – at almost the beginning of autumn!! Fabulous weather for the last few days and hope you’ve all been enjoying it. A big effort last week saw the onions off the field and into the barn to finish their drying and curing that will see them through the winter. We wore out a fair number of agency staff on the onions this year and, as seems to be the way nowadays, will have to try harder to mechanise more next year otherwise there won’t be any onions! We often see this conflict between our need to have a diverse cropping pattern – great in ecological terms – with our need to simply be efficient in economic terms.

The first sweetcorn is in your boxes this week, so do enjoy it. Late this year because of the weather, it will actually be sweeter than this by next week but every day is making a huge difference. There will be more at the Crediton Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning if you can’t wait until next week and don’t forget Exeter Farmers’ Market every Thursday in the City Centre.

You all have a sample of a plum tomato variety which we’re growing for the first time this season, as well as some standard normal tomatoes. Please note that, as flavour develops last in the fruits, so we harvest our tomatoes late and ripe to get the best of the flavours to you: this does mean, however, that you need to handle the fruits with care. We hope you enjoyed the flavour of the Brandywine toms last week and that their tendency to split wasn’t too problematic for you. More aubergines in some of the boxes this week, which hopefully means every collection point and box size has now had them once in August – unless you were on holiday, but not to worry, they’ll be coming around again. Watch out for the wacky Farmers’ Long aubergines throughout September. Amorosa potatoes have (hopefully) been consigned to Linscombe history as the internal quality was unacceptable.

It is Organic Fortnight 1st – 14th September – we are celebrating this with a

Farm walk at Linscombe on Monday 10th September at 6.30pm.

Everyone welcome and we look forward to seeing you all then. Meet in the farmyard and our boys will help show you round. Plenty going on to see – as usual!

Finally, a reminder, as announced in last week’s newsletter (a copy can be seen on our website) we have decided we need to put our box prices up by 5% as of the first box of September. This will make the small box £8.40, medium £10.50 and large £12.60.

Some of you have been enquiring about the extras you can order with your box, and yes, you can order these weekly or fortnightly as a "standing order", or as a one-off order when you have extra mouths to feed. All orders to be received by Monday noon (Thursday deliveries) Tuesday noon (Friday deliveries). Updates for extras are shown at the bottom of newsletters. If no extras are listed on a newsletter, then you can assume the availability and price is as for the previous week.

Extras currently available:

White pots £1.35/kg, 2kgs £2.50, 10kgs £8.

Red pots (not Amorosa) £1.75/kg.

Carrots, no tops, £1.50/kg, 2kgs £2.80,

White onion £1.50/kg Red onion £2/kg,

basil 65p/25g, parsley 65p/50g, chard £1/220g.

Sweetcorn 60p each or 4 for £2.

Tomatoes £2.75/kg.

These prices for registered box customers, prices at markets may differ.

Enjoy your vegetables,

.All the best, Phil, Helen, Tom, David and James and team.