Hi Folks,

I hope you have all been enjoying the lovely sunny weather over the last few days. It’s been doing our crops some good but in all honesty we could do with a few wee showers after an incredibly dry April… Asking for rain is probably not the best way to start of a newsletter so let us move on swiftly!

Farm News

The past month has been a really busy time for us on the farm. Up at Left Field April was largely about spreading compost and shaping our new plots for the year. In the polytunnel we’ve been picking lots of salads and and sowing more greens, chard and early carrots for harvest in the coming weeks and months.

Down in the shelter of our glass house and polytunnels at Rouken Glen it has been full spring ahead with lots of salads, chard and purple sprouting broccoli being harvested. Over the last week we’ve now planted out all our greenhouse tomatoes which are a mix of oxheart and colourful cherry tomatoes. Peppers, chillies, aubergines and lots of herbs are also on the way too.

The month ahead looks like it’s all about transplanting out the seedling we have started in trays over the last few weeks and months. We have thousands of onions, leeks, kale, celery and courgettes to go out amongst other things! It’s going to be busy…

Grow the Growers News

Doro has been busy over the last month getting The Croft together along with our group of new Growers. Our new growers for this year are now busy planting up their plots with lots of beetroot, carrots, tree spinach, fennel and chard. The programme aims to give people interested in learning the skills needed to take up commercial organic horticulture the experience they need. Once their produce is ready we will sell it for them through the shop and veg boxes, as well as through the Good Food Fund..

Good Food Fund News

We’ve recently been granted funds for a new project, Good Food For All, which will allow us to promote and develop the Good Food Fund along with Grow The Growers. This means that we can distribute local produce to food banks and partner organisations which will be grown in part by folks that we are training in small scale organic horticulture.

Thanks to your donations, in the past month we were able to send 36 food parcels to our primary partner, The Space in Govanhill, and 6 sacks of root veg to the South East Food Bank.

You can help us continue to extend our offering by donating. There are a number of ways to donate:

• cash in the shop or at one of our donation boxes.
• cheque made payable to “Good Food Fund”
• bank transfer to Good Food Fund; sort code 80-22-60; account number 12354669
• weekly or monthly direct debit – set up at glasgowlocavore.org/pay, and email us to let us know how much you’d like donate and how frequently
• if you’re a veg box customer, you can add a donation to your monthly invoice by emailing or phoning us, or donate through the Open Food Network

Shop News

This month has seen the beginnings of lots of lovely vegetables coming from suppliers closer to home. We have had courgettes, cucumber, cauliflower and aubergines all from the UK. Our fridges have been packed with Locavore leaves – salad, chard, pea shoots and beautiful kale shoots. We are focussed on stocking all organic produce and have new chocolate in from Equal Exchange, a small company based in Edinburgh who work closely with suppliers to provide a fair pay and delicious products. This month has also seen the expansion of our dried goods sections – lots more options for rice, seeds and other staples in larger packs, increasing value for money and reducing our packaging consumption.

Veg Box news

We’ve extended our delivery area again! We’re now delivering as wide as Doune, Stirling, Falkirk, East Kilbride, Troon, Irvine, Dumbarton and Milngavie. We also deliver in Glasgow!

We’re delighted with to have so many new customers join over the last few months with now over 350 boxes per week being delivered. We’d love to deliver local organic veg and groceries to even more folks so have look and sign up online if you would like to become a subscriber!

The veg boxes are now seeing lots of lovely fresh spring produce with the last weeks seeing salad, chard, asparagus, wild garlic as well as potatoes carrots and leeks.

Have a fantastic weekend!

All at Locavore