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Another great farm trip for some of the ON crew

The team at Mole End in Kent agreed to look after us – massive thanks for so kindly hosting!

Good afternoon, everyone on this fine, sunny day!

We’ve been super busy this end so lots to fill you all in on tday.

First up, as you’ll see from all the photos and video link above, Stu, Cathryn, Nick, Ella and myself had the privilege of visiting Mole End Farm in Kent on the weekend. We were welcomed so kindly by James, Paul, Nico and the team there and enjoyed a fabulous days picking in their orchards whilst we learned loads about the challenges of growing and maintaining apple and pear trees. We had such a fun time and can’t thank the guys at the farm for hosting us so warmly…real wholesome team they seem to have down there. Our Ell will be posting some more pics and vids up on the socials shortly so keep an eye out for those too.

Other points of note before I get onto the veg updates are as follows:

For the first time in 20yrs and very much overdue, our Cheryl at Royal Oak is taking a holiday. She’s been persuaded to leave the farm for a few days to celebrate her son’s wedding in Bordeaux. As a fallout of that, orders for Cheryl’s lines for Monday/Tues customers next week will have to be in by 11am tmorra morning (cut off for Weds/Thurs/Fri customers remains as normal). When she returns, her beautiful and tight heads of broccoli will return to the list (some of the best we get every year) and her first caulis should begin to show too. We also heard from one of our customers up in Hexham that after being entered into the village ‘courgette car racing competition’, one of Cheryl’s marrows took top spot for design and appearance. She can retire happy now eh : )
Another cut-off that might be brought forward for good potentially (we’re trying to find out more) is our Dynamis’ late additions to noon on Friday for all orders. This could potentially cause us some problems as one of the uses of Dynamis is that we’ve always been able to lean on them for late changes if we need to. The reason behind this is another fallout of Brexit with the customs paperwork having to be filled in earlier than it has been to make it through the port in time.

One further note on order cut-offs for this week only is that your Classico, Castagno, Niko orders are all going to have to be in by noon tmorra too as our supplier needs the orders in earlier than usual. I know a fair few of you like to get your veg order in and then the pantry items thereafter so take heed please.

Lastly we’ve two new suppliers for you this week and we’re likely to have a further two for you next week too. Next week we’re looking to add Mr Organic and a range of wines from Vintage Roots. But this week we have Source Climate Change Coffee and Ringtons who between them are gonna up our brew game massively. From ‘Source’ we have a range of beans/capsules and we’re super chuffed to start with these guys who are right up there with their green credentials. Source cut off time is 2pm tmorra too. Ringtons have been trading from Newcastle for over 100yrs and we’re adding their tea bags and single origin beans after being impressed by the samples.

For more info on the pair of them, here’s a couple of links.

About us – Source Climate Change Coffee

About us – Ringtons

Fruit & Veg Headlines:

From the UK this week the top new picks include Foskett’s range of butternuts, Newfields carrots, Farrington’s baking spuds and Roddy’s celeriac with tops.

On the squash front, Strawberry Fields have added blue ballet and Bedlam have added 5 new varieties too which are complemented by their gourds too. Strawberry Fields also have cavolo nero and kale in bags now too – always popular lines these.

From our more newly listed growers, Flourish’s offering continues to do just that with them adding 9 new lines that include collard greens and 3 brand new varieties of radish. Elsewhere Middle Ground have rosemary, Growing Well have mixed chillies and padron peppers and Trinity have added small amounts of red Bramley apples beans and salad leaves. Lastly Kindling Market Garden are down to 15kg of salad available for the week. These guys have got some radicchio heads on the way but they’ve gotta chunk up before they’ll be ready.

On the UK fruit front, Windmill Orchards have added some apple and pear varieties for the first time. Oakwood have a new variety called ‘initial’ alongside their Lambourne’s, Carey has pippin and conference pears, Pardoe santana apples and from Mole End we have meridian cox.
From France, the pick of the Dynamis adds this week are red chicory, salsify, cherimoya, jujube, kiwano and nashi pears. From Holland, Zann also have salsify too.
Abbey leys is continuing with the discount on their eggs for another week as they’ve a lot to shift.

From the bottom of the list, in addition to the two new suppliers we have cinnamon tear and share from Authentic Bread Company, Arcadia EVOO, Happy Butter Ghee and smooth orange juice from Pip.

Signing off this week with a link to a project that we’re very proud to be key partners in. Sustain and Kiloran and Hannah of their ‘Bridging the Gap’ team are doing some great work as is Lucy Antal in Liverpool and between them, they’ve devised a plan to allow some of the less well-off folk of Liverpool and Knowsley to access the best food about – our veg! : )

https://www.sustainweb.org/news/sep24-queen-greens-organic-green-fruit-veg/

Hope you’re able to enjoy the last knockings of the sun, while we’ve still got it,

Sean