Hello Folks,

Almost all of our winter crops are now sown and it’s great to watch all the delicious leafy greens develop. We’ve cleared the last of our tomato plants – chard, claytonia and land cress have taken their place – but other summer crops like cucumbers and courgettes will keep going a little while longer in our polytunnel. The only crop that still needs to be sown this autumn is garlic, which will soon be going into beds recently vacated by some of our kale plants, as we rotate crop varieties to help sustain the soil.

If you’re lucky you’ll find sweetcorn in your veg box this week. This was grown by the New Growers at the Croft in Queen’s Park. Sweet corn was our most experimental crop this year as it’s usually not grown this far North and none of us had grown it before. However the Croft is a very sheltered spot and benefits from the heat island effect of being in the middle of Glasgow, so we thought we might get away with it. We grew one of the earliest-cropping varieties “Double Standard” and the corn did ripen, so that’s pretty exciting! You might notice that some corn is pretty small, and when you peel it you might find it is missing kernels. This is because we grew the corn in small strips in raised beds. Corn is wind pollinated and it seems there wasn’t enough pollen flying around. Had we known we could have hand-pollinated! So we live and learn. We hope you enjoy your funny-shaped corn, it’s probably the only Scottish sweet corn for sale anywhere 2017… Exhaustive taste tests have found it to be deliciously sweet!

The Open Food Network is now open for orders to be delivered with next week’s veg box. You can order extra fruit & veg, groceries and bouquets. We’ve just added added a bakery range, including bread and pastries from Different Breid and Freedom Bakery.

As always, check out our veggiepedia for recipe ideas, and join us over on Facebook if you haven’t already.

In the veg boxes this week:

small potatoes, carrots, onions, chilli, sweetcorn, sutherland OR red russian kale

standard potatoes, carrots, onions, chioggia beetroot, harlequin squash, chilli, cherry tomatoes, red russian kale, cavolo nero

large potatoes, carrots, onions, chioggia beetroot, harlequin squash, savoy cabbage, broccoli, fennel, chilli, cherry tomatoes, cavolo nero

extra large potatoes, carrots, onions, chioggia beetroot, patisson strie squash, romanesco cauliflower, broccoli, fennel, chilli, cherry tomatoes, red russian kale, cavolo nero

fruit #1 red windsor apples

fruit #2 concorde pears

fruit #3 bananas

fruit #4 white Italian grapes

fruit #5 mini watermelon

small foreign celery, avocado, garlic

standard foreign celery, courgette, avocado, lemon, garlic

Enjoy!

The Locavore Team