The Christmas/New Year holiday period now seems a long time away, but we hope everyone had an enjoyable and restful time – we certainly did, a whole week off and we all felt this was much needed having been very busy in the run up to Christmas. Hopefully everyone enjoyed their turkeys and vegetables and if you missed out on the former don’t forget to order early this year – the book is open with repeat orders already taken.
On a gloriously sunny morning here at Bothen Hill, it is extremely muddy, following just over 30 mm of rain in the last 48 hours. Harvesting carrots has been somewhat laborious, due to the sticky mud on both them and our wellies, but they are now awaiting washing prior to going off to Modbury Farm Shop, together with parsnips, kale and other vegetables.
It has been amazingly mild over the last couple of months and as a result we are already seeing vegetables apopearing earlier than usual. Our white sprouting broccoli is in full flower already, normally we don’t start harvesting until the end of February or early March. This is certainly a lesser known vegetable but is extremely popular with our customers, sweeter than it’s purple counterpart and slightly more stalky, it’s very tasty and must be packed with lots of vitamins.
Amazingly we have also found several spears of asparagus peeping through, just enough for a quick taste in the field. Hopefully we will have some colder weather soon so it doesn’t wake up completely for a while – whilst we do enjoy asparagus, and it is extremely popular, the thought of harvesting at this time of year is a bit much!