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You think how much diversity is on this small farm, and then think you could fit the whole thing inside one field somewhere like Cambridgeshire. It makes us proud to be doing what we do.
Last week I spent a contemplative afternoon picking crab apples. The trees, along with medlars, damsons, apples, blackberries and hazelnuts, were planted ten years ago as part of a hedge. Some would call it permaculture, but neglect would be more accurate. I sometimes wish I could disengage the calculator in my head, but, failing to reach Zen oneness with my picking, my mind whirred.
As light levels drop, our last lettuces (planted in early August) are losing the lust for life; with that departing vitality goes flavour, and almost certainly nutritional value. For salad lovers it is time to move on to more robust leaves like mizuna, land cress, claytonia and mustards from our polytunnels and, for those with a bitter palate, the cold-tolerant dandelion relatives from our fields in Devon and the Vendée.
It has been a near-perfect autumn for us. All our potatoes are now in store; the dry conditions allowing the harvesting machinery to work its magic, gently sifting tubers from the soil before delivering the nuggets to one ton wooden bins on a trailer running alongside. Long gone are the back breaking days of hand filling half hundredweight bags, dragged slowly up a hill between your legs.
A couple of years ago I asked for suggestions of less familiar vegetables you would like us to grow for your veg boxes. Among the more frequent suggestions were oca, purslane, turmeric, lemon grass, yukon, puntarelle, ratte potatoes, cardoons, some whacky tomatoes and cime di rapa. I’m a sucker for a challenge, so we have run growing and cooking trials on these vegetables and more.
Issue 12: Fairness and five years.
Find out more about Wicked Leeks and our publisher, organic veg box company Riverford.