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Flourish produce;

Red Russian kale, heirloom tomatoes, lavender bunches and a mix of Thumbelina & blonde cucumbers.

What came in to us so far this week looks really lovely and we’re so glad to be working with such a great bunch!

We can’t wait to try some of their five varieties of basil.

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Good morning to you on this fine and sunny day!

So last week’s forecasts were on the money and the deluges seemed to have eased for a while at least *cue months-long drought and everything going to pot in the opposite way! Fingers crossed things don’t pan out like that this summer/early autumn and our brilliant growers can enjoy some relatively balanced weather for a couple of months at least.

Balanced is certainly not the word they’re using in Spain just now as the same searing heat that’s alluring thousands of UK tourists to their shores is frying many of their tomato and pepper plants before the fruits are harvested. As a result, none of the farms that we work directly with in Spain this week have regular bell peppers available. This is a first and a worrying development for sure. The Dutch peppers are expensive, the French wholesalers source a lot of their peppers from Spain so I wouldn’t bet your life on Dynamis coming good on those so this week your best bet would be some Italian ones that we’ve managed to source from I Frutti. These are med to large size as Italian peps so often are but they’ll be the best around I reckon. It’s fortunate that we’ve recently looked to make some closer ties with these guys as it looks like they will be able to get us out of a hole this week.

Last up on the temps, I’ve been asked to remind you guys that receive your orders by pallets that if you plan to be ordering delicate items like non-fibrous greens, broccoli, basil, delicate fruits etc then you always need to be looking to book the more expensive temperature-controlled chilled pallets as the temps rise, rather than ambient. Gambling with ambient pallets when ordering lots of delicate items in the rising temps will inevitably mean that some items will suffer and our growers can only foot the bill for any genuine losses, not for foreseen ones so please take note.

On a more positive note, our new grower, Flourish (Cambridgeshire) more than hit the ground running this week with huge sales and a very impressive first delivery too. We’re totally thrilled to be working with these guys and we know that you lot will be too. This week they’ve added lots of new lines again including dragon suyo and Japanese sashimi cucumbers, shisho leaves and a range of edible flowers. The icing on the cake was the sweet letter with pressed flowers and the beautiful bunch of sunflowers that our Cathryn received from Flourish’s founder, Calixta. Flourish are really gonna add something special to our weekly offerings, we’re so pleased! : )

Continuing the positive vibes, we’ve had some really pleasing updates from one of our other fab new growers, Middle Ground whose ferocious work-rate seems to allow them to continually innovate and develop what they are doing down there near Bath. They’ve received permission to erect 2 more tunnels and there’s already 18,000 plants going into the ground this week, which should already give them a decent winter offering.

They’ve also just purchased a refrigerated van to keep our deliveries super fresh and had some fantastic results back from field surveys carried out on their no-till market garden and field veg soils. Using cover crop agroforestry, the health of their soil is showing improvements, and this is mirrored by a marked increase in biodiversity too. Not wholly unsurprising as you proponents of organics are of course aware of the multitude of positive effects that this method of farming can have on a landscape, but very pleasant and encouraging reading nonetheless, eh. These guys have a much more abundant list than in previous weeks after a slow spring so their availabilities are bigger and their fresh cut flowers looking their summer best too : )

Fruit & Veg Headlines:

• A lot to be positive about as above, despite the constant anxiety about the weather/climate but little makes us as happy as to see the annual return of our amazing long-standing local grower, Royal Oak (Lancashire). For those of you who’ve only recently began ordering, Royal Oak are and have always been a crucial grower for us and their farm and sales grown as we have as a company over the past 28yrs or so. They’re first crops of the year are mizuna, mixed courgettes, pak choi and purple mange tout and as ever, their numbers and lines will increase as the weeks progress over summer. Here’s a vid we took on one of our past visits to the farm…Royal Oak – Organic North Wholesalers

• There’s so many exciting new lines from around the UK this week that it’s hard to know where to begin! Newfields are back in with some cauliflowers, kales and their first spuds of the year. We’ve very fond memories of the day we spent picking these last summer.

• Pollybell have unlimited caulis and Foskett’s have lots of beetroots (lucky as Strawberry Fields have a gap this week before they get into their 2^nd block), parsley leaf and loose carrots washed both orange and purple. Bedlam have fennel and pattypan squash and the aforementioned Strawberry Fields also have fennel (both with and without tops) alongside spaghetti squash.

• Elsewhere, Farrington’s have alouette spuds, Nash Nursery some Gatsby spuds and Simpson has his first leeks of the year. The spinach from Home Farm is off this week but when it returns next week or the following week, we’ll have loose available too from there.

• For the smaller-scale growers, Middle Ground have added some courgettes, St Helen’s Farm is helping to plug our mixed salad gaps for the first time with bagged and loose available and we’ve our broadest offer ever from the guys at Kindling Market Garden (now our most local supplier) which includes, cucumbers, flat parsley, rocket and more mixed salad leaves. We’ve also some more flat parsley from Trinity too.

• This is already the best week for UK additions that I can remember for some time but the cherry on the cake or rather the plum on the cake are those listed from two of our returning orchards this week, Oakwood (Sussex) and Pardoe (Herefordshire). 3 varieties to go at but all somewhat limited so don’t be surprised if I have to cull your numbers. I always try to share out what we have available whilst making sure that we sell out of our growers’ limited items. It’s a juggling act and tricky some weeks (like this week!) but a strictly first-come-first-serve business we’ll never be.

• Looking South to Europe and for the soaring temps, there are very few new lines to enjoy, especially from Spain. From Portugal, Mais have added some peppers, toms and okra and Haciendas have flat peaches too.

• From Holland, Zann have some chillies, ‘Trasa some granny smith apples and from Italy, I Frutti have peppers. From France, Uni-Vert have some prima grapes and Dynamis’ most interesting adds for me are the white aubergines, mixed colour peppers, blackcurrants and lychees.

• From the bottom of the list, Coato’s honey in squeezy bottles returns as do the jumbo oats from Pimhill. We’ve also listed the apple cider vinegar from Loving Foods for the first time too.

I’ll sign off this week with yet some more great news in that one of our cheesemakers, Shepherd’s Purse have recently picked up some top awards for their Yorkshire blue cheese. A fortnight ago, it was sent to the International Cheese and Dairy Awards for the first time ever and was an instant fave and won GOLD! The popularity of the cheese continued last week when at the Great Yorkshire Show when the cheese again won gold in its class before going onto win Champion Organic Product and SUPREME PRODUCT at the show too. These guys have attended the show for the last 35yrs and never won the ‘supreme product’ award so naturally they’re thrilled. If you’ve not tried this cheese then we recommend that you get onto it – it’s fab!

Quick brew and I’ll be back in the hot seat to process all your orders 🙂

Have a top week everyone,

Sean

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Pip Organics 

‘Pipsticks’ are the new cupboard staple for us.

There’s nothin’ but nothin’ but fruit in these bars. Just mangoes and pineapple.

Patrick, Karen and the team at Pip use a 3 step process of chop, dry and mash… all that’s in them is 100% organic fruit, no nasties here.

There’s a ‘man-goes in to a bar’ joke somewhere here, but we’ll bloody well leave it out for a change.

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