Harvest time

Harvest time as we begin Autumn offers so many fruits of the land.  Farmers have worked tirelessly since sowing the seeds, nurturing the plants ensuring light, pollination and feed is enhancing their growth.  Their knowledge of nature is combined with their hard graft, precision planting and a  weather obsession!

I love harvest time, at the end of Summer throughout August we (myself and my 4 year old, Ewan) have watched the combine harvesters cut the crops, bale & wrap and tractors collect from the fields.  Ewan can usually tell me more about the machinery and processes that we are watching, seeing things through his eyes starts to really make you appreciate how the food we eat is produced.

September harvest is brimming with fantastic vegetables such as broccoli, beetroot, pumpkins, leeks, potatoes and turnips.  Fruits such as apples, blackberries and plums are ripening beautifully ready for harvest.  Nothing tastes better than field to fork produce, fresh, local and full of goodness.  Beetroot is great for helping to cleanse the liver when eaten regularly as it is high in beta-carotene and folic acid.  Leeks are packed full of vitamin c, iron and fibre promoting health benefits of the blood and heart.  Potatoes are probably the most versatile of vegetables used widely across Europe, a great source of complex carbohydrates, vitamin c and folate.  Blackberries are great eaten fresh from the bush, but are extra special in comforting hot pies with the first season apples….mmmm.

Look out at The Hollies as the local harvest is dropped off at the farm shop only minutes from being dug from the fields or picked from the branches nearby.

Pumpkins nurtured by Richard and Cyril are coming along nicely, from planting the seeds in May, they have fed, hoed and weeded the pumpkin lines.  They will cut the pumpkins from late September onwards, bringing you fresh homegrown pumpkins from our own fields that are brimming with anti-oxidants and vitamins.