Strawberries are a traditional sight at the start of the UK summer and on a sunny Tuesday in mid-June we took a trip to our fields in Devon to take some photos of them being picked.
Strawberries will usually be ready from late May to mid July but the timing has to be right. If they have a little green on them they will be able to ripen in the punnet, but if they are too green they can’t. If they’re too red, they don’t keep for long, even in the fridge.
Every week we’ll give you tips on using the difficult to use or less known veg in the boxes. This week, Kirsty talks about spinach, beetroot and new potatoes.
You may get true spinach or perpetual spinach in your box this week. They can both be used in the same way – you can use them raw in salads or cook them. True spinach is more succulent than perpetual spinach.
To prepare it, wash, cut the stalks off, blanch in a pan of boiling water for a minute, drain, refresh in a bowl of cold water, drain again and then chop finely. You can sauté them off with garlic if you want to or use them in our frittata verde recipe.
beetroot (0 mins, 51 seconds)
As soon as you get it, chop the stalks and leaves off (before putting it in the fridge or storage. ) If you are going to use the leaves, keep them in the fridge, but the root can be stored in a cool, dark place.
To cook the leaves and stalks, chop them into small pieces and put them in a heavy based frying pan with a little olive oil and chopped or sliced garlic. Cook and stir for around 5 minutes before adding lemon juice.
You can boil or roast your beetroot. To roast, put it in a roasting dish, put a little bit (5cm) of water in, cover it with foil and put in the oven for around 45-60 mins, until tender. Then peel and use in salads.
new potatoes (2 mins, 5 seconds)
We keep them in a brown bag so they can store well. Keep them in a cool, dark place (in the bag) until you are ready to use them.
Click here for our recipe for new potatoes with chilli and lime.
If you’re finding any veg challenging this week, visit our website.
Thanks to the 50 or so of you who responded to my musings on whether it would be a good idea to grow at least some of our strawberries under tunnels to protect them from the weather and consequent losses (newsletter of 14th June.) The original post is here.
There was a (very) small majority who felt that the eyesore was justified by benefit but is was a close thing. My views have changed over the years from being very anti tunnels to thinking that they are justified for intensive crops like strawberries. We will do some costings to check that it makes economical sense and the final decision will lie with our suppliers; in Devon that, means John, the farm manager. If it works economically we will not discourage it as we have in the past.
Responding to a few specific points raised in the responses
An acre (originally defined as the area that one man could plough with one horse in a day) is 4000 square metres; 15 time the paying area of a tennis court or just over half the area of a premier league football pitch. So to supply all our 60,000 customers with strawberries would require about 8 acres of tunnels or about 5 football pitches.
Extending the season; there was an over whelming majority who felt that tunnels were not justified to extend the season. Most people were happy to have a relatively short “natural season”. Tunnels can extend the season but this would not be our motivation; we and you seem perfectly happy with it as it is.
The plastic lasts 3 to five years and would be recycled after use
The plastic is usually clear and would appear white but some people have successfully used green. I am not convinced this is an aesthetic benefit.
On flavour: My views have changed from a prejudice against tunnels as promoting lush growth and reducing light levels and therefore flavour. In practice we find that the best flavour comes from the plants with the best growing conditions. We often get unpleasant off flavours when plants suffer stress. I suspect that on average the fruit would be better from under tunnels.
Broad beans are now in season and are grown on our farm in Devon. These beans were drilled in the autumn from dry beans and picked in mid June.
We sow some beans in Autumn and some in Spring. If the Winter is too cold, the Autumn sown crop doesn’t always survive and if it’s a wet spring, the later crop may drown.
In the early stages, the plants are covered with mesh to protect them from crows and other pests. After this, they don’t need a lot of attention.
Try cooking broad beans and adding them to roast artichokes and new potatoes. We’ve also got a recipe for broad bean and goat’s cheese omelette here.
Broad beans have just come into season and they’ll be in the boxes now.
Keep them in the fridge and take them out of their pods when you need to use them. The easiest way to pod the beans is to put your nail in the side, run it down the side of the pod and pop the beans out.
To cook the beans, pop them in boiling water and blanch them for about 4 minutes. Once they’re cooked, take them out, leave them to cool and pop them out of their shells.
Try our recipe for broad bean, mushroom and bacon salad here.
pak choi
This is a Chinese cabbage. The leaves can be used raw in salads like lettuce and you can use the whole veg chopped thinly into stir fries or noodle soup.
To prepare it, remove the leaves and give them a wash, cut the leaves into strips then steam or stir fry.
Try our recipe for stir fried Asian noodles with pak choi and chicken here.
This is being written in the Vendée, where the courgettes are growing so quickly that we have to pick them every day and even then the field is littered with discarded marrows that got away from us. The specification (35-50mm diameter) is the source of much mirth; my French is not up to much and I struggle to follow the field banter, but it seems to centre around the women having a more realistic estimate of size. When the courgettes are finished it is onto the bunched carrots; here the jokes are all about “carrottes amoureuses” where two roots have followed the same fissure down through the soil and become entwined. They are the happiest workforce I have ever known. The only other work around here is pulling the guts out of ducks at the local abattoir so perhaps it is not surprising that they seem so happy to be out in the fields.
I travelled down via London and the V&A where, amongst statues, jewels and porcelain, we collected the Observer Best Ethical Online Retailer award to add to the Best Ethical Business and Best Ethical Restaurant we won last year; most gratifying. Thanks to those of you who voted for us.
The yurt-housed Travelling Field Kitchen has been on the road for a month now, first in Hampshire and more recently at Freightliners City Farm in London. The food has been fantastic and the atmosphere harmonious and joyful. Logistically it is as difficult as getting a crusade to Jerusalem, but the contented hubbub of conversation from 80 well-fed diners reminds me why we embarked on this crazy project in the first place. At the end of July we take our yurt to WOMAD (23rd-25th July). As well as running a pared-down version of the restaurant in the mornings, we are sponsoring the Taste the World stage where, after performing on the main stages, musicians from all over the world come to cook, tell stories and play the occasional song to small and intimate audiences before sharing food with them. If, like me, you are a bit crowd phobic, with an eclectic taste in music, I cannot recommend WOMAD highly enough; it is a very civilised experience.
Spinach is now in season and we took a trip out the fields to see it being picked. This crop was planted in April, and was picked on a sunny morning in mid June.
On our farm in Devon, we sow spinach from April to August and pick it from June to November. The first spinach is planted and covered with a fleece to bring it on early. The later crop is drilled into open ground and both crops are mechanically and if necessary hand weeded.
Spinach doesn’t like to be shocked, so if the temperature changes from cold to warm quickly, it can bolt so we can’t use it. Luckily, since April, we haven’t had too many problems with the weather!
Spinach goes well with butter and cheese and for an easy idea, dress cold cooked spinach with pomegranate juice and seeds then serve as part of a mezze or with grilled fish.
Over the last twenty years the huge majority of the UK strawberry crop has moved from open fields to the protection and intensification afforded by hundreds of acres of polytunnels, largely in Kent and Herefordshire. Plastic can advance a crop by perhaps two weeks, but the great advantage is the protection it gives from the vagaries of a British summer. Fruit must be picked dry to avoid bruising and to give a reasonable shelf life. Even more importantly, persistent dampness leads to a build-up of fungal disease, particularly botrytis, which can reduce a good berry to a foul tasting pulp in a matter of hours.
Our strawberries are grown extensively on high ridges at wide spacing which, in a normal year, gives enough airflow to dry dews and rain before botrytis sets in. There can be no doubt that polytunnels are a blot on the landscape; the question is whether they are justified by the economic and environmental benefit they bring by reducing wastage, extending the UK season, excluding exports and thus reducing food miles. For twenty years I have stubbornly persisted with growing outdoors, with the result that we have a relatively short season and, over the last few years, have not been able to pick up to a third of the fruit. Initially I was convinced that growing outdoors gave better flavour, but now I am not so sure and wonder if I have been overly dogmatic in my resistance. Across the five regional farms we would need eight acres of tunnels to provide a good supply of strawberries for the 45,000 homes we deliver to each week. Your views would be welcome.
We took a trip to one of the fields on our farm in Devon to see wet garlic being picked for the boxes.
We laid mulch across the field in September last year then planted the garlic in late October and early November. We used a mechanical dibber to punch little holes into the mulch, and then planted garlic through them.
The field workers pick the garlic in May and June by pulling it out of the ground. They then fold two of them over to make a bunch for the vegboxes.
An easy idea for wet garlic: Add sliced wet garlic to roast new potatoes about 10 minutes before the end of cooking.
Try a recipe for roast wet garlic and goat’s cheese toast here.
Despite being widely used in desserts, rhubarb is technically a vegetable; it’s a member of the polygonaceae family and related to sorrel. It has suffered in recent years along with many of Britain’s traditional crops as supermarkets started selling out-of-season produce from around the world. Rhubarb is an excellent crop to grow in Britain, enjoying cool climates and suffering very few pests. At home, it will keep for a week in a plastic bag in the bottom of your fridge, and can still be used after this. It also packs a flavoursome punch at the table. As well as the obvious crumble, enjoy its vibrant colour by swirling stewed rhubarb through creamy yoghurt for a quick breakfast or dessert. Its sharpness works beautifully with meat and fish, too.
free vanilla
Order a bundle of rhubarb alongside your vegbox for delivery between 7-19th June and we’ll include a free pack of vanilla pods so you can try our Rhubarb and Vanilla Yoghurt Cake (recipe available on the website). The cake is really quick to make and is good served warm or cold.
no carrots in the boxes
The carrot bunches on our farm in France were badly beaten up by the weeds and then seriously assaulted by an atrocious spring. The end result is a much lower yield than we had hoped for, with each carrot creeping towards a harvestable size much later than expected. Our own season has also started a couple of weeks late; we had hoped that the first bunches would be ready for the boxes this week, but they just aren’t quite there yet. Rather than harvest when they are too small or jump to buying substandard southern European carrots, we have decided to leave carrots out of the boxes this week. We are confident that the bunches from France, combined with bunches from Graham and Chris, our growers in Norfolk, will satisfy the needs of the boxes next week. By the end of June, with a little rain and some more sunshine, the crop should be racing away, with ample to go round. You will then enjoy bunches in the boxes through to August, when we return to loose carrots for the autumn.
being picked.
here
