Our mission for the coming months is to make life with a box easier. There will be a few minor changes like less clods of mud but mostly we want to do this by cooking with you; both virtually and in person. We plan to team up with around 100 like-minded professional cooks who are inspired by our veg and on a par with our chef, Jane Baxter when it comes to cooking them. They will work part-time with us and our customers, inspiring, teaching, demonstrating, creating recipes. We plan to run initiatives including affordable cookery classes and demos in homes, workplaces and community venues; lunch clubs, supper clubs and cooking clubs and a recipe exchange for customers. We have already run some pilot events and now we really want to get going. read more

We are back to our Devon drizzle and there is a side of me that is almost pleased. Some of our crops certainly needed the rain and we can finally pack away all those pumps and sprinklers for the year, secure in the knowledge that nothing will be thirsty for the next seven months. After two dreadful summers when the corn struggled to ripen, we downgraded our yield predictions and planted more acres to make up the numbers. This year the crop has been late and looked dodgy in July but the September sun saved us, bringing our highest yields ever. With it all ripening at the same time… read more…

With the recent warm dry weather, our squash are developing good hard skins to store well over the coming months. Squash and pumpkins are part of the Cucurbitaceae family, along with courgettes and marrows, but are distinguished by the fact that their fruits are harvested mature and can last very well, making them a useful staple through autumn and winter (and often beyond). read more

Zoe Williams’ attack on all things organic (The Guardian 26/9/09) is comprehensive but incoherent. Does she really think we should condemn all organic farmers for the misdeeds of one criminal like Neil Stansfield of Swaddles Green? Or write off every organic buyer who shows a modicum of trust as a mug who deserves to be ripped off?

My 23 years of growing organic vegetables have given me a different view of organic buyers and growers (though box scheme buyers may be a little more considered than those snatching organic labels from the shelves of supermarkets or Fortnum and Mason). The vast majority are searching for a safer, fairer and more sustainable way of growing and enjoying food. Far from being unthinkingly compliant and accepting, or driven by fashion, they generally seem to me an argumentative, questioning and varied lot, making their own pragmatic judgements after balancing up a host of issues including local, fair trade, scale of production, use of packaging, animal welfare, food safety and environmental impact to name a few. Food safety and particularly the avoidance of pesticides (not covered in FSA report she quotes) often head the list of motivations for new organic buyers but, in my experience, this is soon supplanted by flavour. Few believe that organic is the only, or complete solution, but most share a belief that our food and farming needs to change and that in most instances organic offers a better alternative.

I have more sympathy with the second half of her article, condemning a perceived hijacking of all food issues by the organic movement. read more

Our mini cucumbers from Wash Farm have won the Fruit & Vegetable category in the Soil Association Organic Food Awards closely followed by our pointed cabbages awarded commended. Judges called them ‘delicate, sweet, fresh and crunchy’. We couldn’t agree more!

our founder, Guy Watson, has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Law from Plymouth University.  Guy earned a distinction for his campaigning work for the organic movement and more recently for promoting practical home cooking using seasonal veg.

 He was in the company of the likes of Pen Hadow, polar explorer who picked up an Honorary Doctorate of Science and Juliet Davenport founder of the Good Energy Group who also picked up an Honorary science degree.

Autumn newsletters seldom escape some reference to mists and mellow fruitfulness. In two hundred years no one has evoked a grower’s September satisfaction better than Keats in the first verse of ‘To Autumn’. As a philistine farmer I never get beyond the first line, but such is the diversity of our workforce that one particularly beautiful autumn morning while harvesting a particularly bountiful crop of squash, we were treated to a perfect rendition of all three verses from an otherwise subdued field worker. It was many years ago and I can’t remember his name but I can remember exactly where I was in that field on top of a hill looking down on the clearing mist in the valley, the satisfying weight of the gourds and a feeling of overwhelming harmony and wellbeing.
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The current spell of bright, sunny weather means now is the ideal time to enjoy corn at its ripe, sweet best. Our field workers judge when a cob is ready by feel alone; if you peel back the leaves it will quickly deteriorate. The most damaging (and unlikely-sounding) pest to the crop is our local badger population. Badgers have a sweet tooth and adore wreaking havoc through a field, grabbing mouthfuls of sweetcorn and generally delighting in destruction. read more

Contrary to most of the press coverage, the Food Standards Agency report published last week did not prove that organic food was no better for you than non-organic. It merely showed that there was no conclusive evidence either way, on the grounds of a limited review of existing research into a limited range of nutrients taken in isolation. read more in Guy Watson’s newsletter…

a customer’s thoughts
Thankfully many of our customers read past the headlines. Diane sent us this email in response to the FSA report:

“Firstly I would like to thank you for todays box of fresh, tasty, reasonably priced, nutritious vegetables, grown with conscience and compassion and most importantly without man-made chemicals.

I have just read the accompanying newsletter entitled ‘misguided?’ and I thought perhaps a ‘customer’ reaction to the FSA’s report might be gratifying for potentially damaged morale.  I personally found the well publicised conclusion of the report somewhat incredulous; how can such a statement be made when only a number of nutrients have been considered and no other aspect of production has been taken into account.  Additionally, does this statement truly reflect analysis that shows a positive increase in a number of important nutrients but which appears to have been ignored on the basis that there are too few studies to take the data from.  During the last week it has become very apparent to me that many people simply scan read the newspaper primarily noting the headlines, no doubt as a result of our busy lives.  Such statements/headlines are therefore often taken out of context with potentially damaging results.  Perhaps we need to consider who stands to gain from such statements; are the interests of the global chemical giants being protected here? One would hope not but it is a worrying thought. 

 Keep up the good work Riverford, we still love you despite what you may read in the papers!”

the cucumbers on our Devon farm have been under attack from the cotton aphid. We are usually prepared for it in late June but this year high numbers of them came early.  The aphid isn’t interested in the cucumbers but feeds on the leaf to take in sugars. Anything they can’t use is secreted onto the leaf as honeydes and invaded by sotty mould. The leaves then can’t photosynthesise so the plant struggles to grow.

sooty mould on the leaves

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