Morning Folks,

Over at Neilston, our growers have been finishing planting out cucumbers and courgettes in the polytunnel as well as chillies and bell peppers. If you want to try your hand at growing your own, but haven’t got round to sowing seeds yet, we’ve got chilli and sweet pepper plants as well as tomato plants for sale in our shop.

We had a minor problem this week when our water pump broke on Sunday. This means watering all of the crops in our polytunnel by hand with a watering can – a job that can easily take up an hour when the sun is out and the plants thirsty. Fortunately we got that fixed on Wednesday to focus on the main job of the week – shovelling and wheelbarrowing 18 tonnes of compost onto our courgette beds. The pile is getting steadily smaller but the boggy ground caused by the heavy rain this week isn’t helping. A hard week’s work!

We have the year’s first harvest of carrots from Left Field in the standard veg boxes. They are beautiful bunches of small tender roots, still with their tops. The tops are a bonus leafy green, and can be eaten raw or cooked – great mixed through a salad or stir fry, or even blended into a pesto.

Broad beans and kohl rabi are back in season, both of with are in all the veg boxes this week – check out our veggipedia for recipe suggestions.

Our online shop on the Open Food Network is now open for orders to be delivered with your veg box next week.

In the veg boxes this week:

small: potatoes, kohl rabi, broad beans, spring greens

standard: potatoes, bunch of carrots, bunch of onions, tomatoes, kohl rabi, broad beans, spring greens,

large: potatoes, bunch of onions, kohl rabi, broad beans, spring greens, tomatoes, salad, cinnamon basil

extra large: potatoes, bunch of onions, kohl rabi, broad beans, spring greens, tomatoes, salad, cucumber, cavolo nero, dill

fruit #2: Regal Prince apples

fruit #3: apricots

fruit #4: bananas

fruit #5: nectarines

small foreign: peas OR sweet potatoes, red pepper, basil

standard foreign: sweet potatoes, peas, red pepper, basil

Enjoy!

The Locavore Team