It's a scoop

Spoiler warning: there will be a smattering of pumpkin related puns running through the post!

I officially have pumpkin envy this week.  Regular readers of the blog will be aware that I started to cultivate a friend's unused vegetable plots in January.  I have enjoyed the experience and learned a lot.  Much of what is learned in a food growing situation sticks.  Teachers among us would credit that to the fact that it is learned through doing - 'experiential'.  I am slightly less theoretical than that - if you are faced with literally dozens of radishes to eat because you hadn't realised you should repeat sow them every fortnight - you remember next time!

Harvest
I have harvested 4 pumpkins from the plot.

They are ripening nicely on my window ledge, and I was looking forward to stalking (groan!) the trick or treaters with a scary carving or two. 

New beginnings
At the beginning of September I took on a small allotment at the Star Lane site in Lymm.  It is about 10 x 11 metres and I have had great fun getting the shed, composters and beds ready for action.  My sons came down with me on a beautiful Sunday two weeks ago and we planted garlic, Japanese onions and broad beans.  On a visit this week to check for wind damage, I found that the onions and garlic have sprouted. 

This is no doubt aided by the copious manure I have been ferrying down there from a local stables. 

I remembered that one of the very experienced allotment holders had offered his pumpkins for a small donation.  Hence the source of my pumpkin envy.  They are gargantuan.  He has certainly carved (groan!) up the competition.  Still, that is the beauty of having an allotment: people are always willing to share tips.  Come May 2015 I'll be hot footing it down to Neil's plot to ask how he does it.

Have fun at Halloween, and don't forget to ask if the pumpkins you are buying are UK grown.  Even if they are not, it will encourage the seller to source them closer to home next year.

Lisa Reid

Moss Brow Farm

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Moss Brow Farm (Paddock Lane, Warburton WA13 9TJ).  I haven't been before because living at the other end of Lymm means I rarely travel down that road.  The first picture is dark because the sun was shining directly into the road that day!

There is a good range of fruit & vegetables, eggs, honey and some marmelade.  Like my other favourite farm shops, they stock as much of their own produce as  is growing in that season (in this case - potatoes, cauliflowers and cabbages), buy local produce directly from other farmers, then top up with items from further afield at the wholesale market to make a full range available all year round. Whilst it would be lovely to shop for local fruit and vegetables all year round, the truth is that in our climate we simply can't grow a wide enough range to satisfy demand

As the Cleggs showed me round their shop, it was clear they were proud to stock a lot of their own produce, and to support their neighbours because most of the stunning vegetables there were local...some more unusual than others.

The thing I liked best about Moss Brow was the value for money. I was about to leave the shop having bought much more than I intended, when a man came in to buy the deal advertised at the gate - '2 caulis for £1'.  My jaw literally dropped.  I was compelled to buy what I can only describe as the 2 biggest cauliflowers I have ever seen.  They were 30cm wide.  I gave one to a friend, who had to remove a shelf from her fridge to accommodate it.

They will have local sprouts soon, so bear them in mind for vegetables to go with your roast dinners. The shop is easy to find, because it is over the read from the Saracen's Head pub and near the corner where you turn to go to Dunham Massey.  Just make sure you take plenty of large bags!

Lisa Reid

Let's Celebrate?

It would be easy at this time of year to be fed up about the passing of a gorgeous summer.  I have found this week, though, that I am embracing the change by getting stuck in to some autumnal recipes - and some of you have written to say that you have too:

Sue O'Connor bought some Carlisle Codlin and Baker's Delicious apples from the Oughtrington community orchard at the Lymm Produce Show.  She created a different version of apple crumble using a Raymond Blanc recipe  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/778642/apple-and-blackberry-crumble

After a bumper crop of raspberries at her allotment, Zoe Cohen sent in a picture of her raspberry, cinnamon and raisin muffins.  They look healthy enough to eat for breakfast, don't they?

My autumnal fare, has included picking my 2.7metre tall sunflower to use as a centre piece for a family meal on top of a bowl of conkers:

I fell in love with some rainbow chard at the Abbey Leys farmer's market on Sunday and bought far too much.  A quick internet search 'can I freeze chard' revealed that I could (phew!), so that is waiting in the freezer for another meal.

Sometimes we get stuck in a rut, even with our favourite vegetables.  Consequently, I have written some recipe cards for parsnip and celeriac to take to Lymm market on Thursday.  Look out for them next to those two lovely British vegetables if you are stuck for ideas.

Lisa Reid plus help from Zoe and Sue - thanks!

What a big delivery

Abbey Leys Visit
I was out and about today having a chat with a local food suppliers - but more about that in a minute.  I popped in to see Janet and Tim at Abbey Leys Farm on Peacock Lane in High Legh.  They host our most local farmer's market which happens monthly on the first Sunday of each month.  That means that you can pop along this coming Sunday to shop for really super local produce.  Tim had just received a delivery of terrific pumpkins - and as you can see one of them almost filled a wheelbarrow.  Until today I thought huge veg like that was only to be seen in county shows.  It certainly made me smile.  They had a lovely array of veg grown in the Farmstart field - which Andrew and I have mentioned in previous blogposts. 

Low Carbon Lymm
The LCL food team are taking stock of their activities at the moment: ensuring their activities match what the local suppliers want, and thinking up some new ideas to enthuse the public about eating local.  We are visiting some of the suppliers to find out what may have changed since we last saw them, and we are interested in hearing from any of you too.  You are very welcome to tell us what you think about our activities, what you would like to see us doing to support local suppliers, or anything about local food & drink generally.  You can email us at lisa.reid0902@gmail.com or pop along to our next LCL meeting in the function room at the Golden Fleece at 1930 on Monday 13th October. 

Lisa Reid

What a week

Lymm Produce Show
It has been the most amazing week.  Last Sunday we hosted another successful Lymm Produce Show at Oughtrington Community Orchard (http://www.oughtrington.co.uk/orchard/).  I felt it was a significant show this year.  The previous shows have been great: people who make or grow food and drink locally getting together to celebrate their efforts.  This year was different in that it had an even bigger feel-good factor than normal.  Everyone registering in the morning 9-11 slot was incredibly enthusiastic about their entries even if they had a go at a loaf of bread for the first time that morning.  In the afternoon, we saw lots more community groups gathered in gazebos on the field.  All that additional zeal gladdens the heart, but my favourite part of the day is seeing people walking home with the produce they have bid for in the auction chatting about what they will make for tea with it.

A revelation!
We were lucky to host a stall with Farmstart produce at the Produce Show.  Regular readers of the blog will have seen mentions of their wonderful work growing organic produce a couple of miles from Lymm.  I brought home a goody bag of their great veg.  I'm such a veggie lover (not a bonefide veggie, but just love great vegetables) that when I find great veg, I just buy a selection and then have fun googling what to do with it all when I return home.  I also love to buy a random item which I haven't experienced.  This time the random item was radicchio.  What a revelation that has been!  I braised it on top of flaky pastry (I didn't get to eat any as the kids wolfed the lot!!).  I have simmered it then added to a vegetable pasta dish, and lastly my son added it to his school food technology recipe for vegetable soup.  It is also good as a salad leaf.  Overall, I found it to be quite bitter, but if used with sweeter vegetables or finely chopped in salads it is great.  The braising would have been better if I'd tossed in some oil, I feel.

Runner Beans in a Thali
The last picture is the Indian thali meal we created to use up a mountain of runner beans harvested from my allotment.  We use Madhur Jaffrey's spicy green bean recipe (http://dinnercoop.cs.cmu.edu/dinnercoop/Recipes/sanjiv/MasaledarSem.html) with anything like beans or okra.  On this occasion, the beans were quite big so we simmered them until quite soft.  Delicious.  The chicken was cooked up using Pattak's tikka paste.  I used Hugh's dhal recipe for the puy lentils(http://www.welovethisbook.com/features/hugh-fearnley-whittingstalls-dahl), just cooking them for longer than the recipe, which uses red lentils. 

A big thank you to all those that supported the 2014 Produce Show.  Not least Lymm.me who wrote a lovely article (http://www.lymm.me/grown-lymm/) in support of our efforts.

Lisa Reid

Abbey Leys Farmers Market

We've mentioned Farmstart a couple of times in this blog, but last weekend at the Abbey Leys Farmers Market was the first time I had seen their stall: and what a bountiful supply of locally grown veg it was. They had some beautiful disc shaped courgettes, beans, tomatoes, onions and peppers - along with everything else you can see on the picture. The stall looked so fresh and appealing!

I picked up quite a bit, including some of the long finger shaped peppers - which I took home and stuffed with a variety of things, including cheese, before roasting off in the oven.

All the fruit and veg that they sell is grown on local farms by local people, and I felt the prices were really cheap when compared to the supermarkets. Everything was priced in pence not pounds - so it was pleasing to only have to hand over a couple of quid for a bag full of veg.

You can also pick up amazing pies, cakes, chocolate, natural juices, meat - in fact you could easily do a weekly food shop there....

Abbey Leys Farmers Market is the first sunday of the month, so the next one is 5th October. Why don't you take 20 mins out of your day to pop down and have a look at the stalls? Let us know what your favourite buy was!

Just showing off?

2014 Produce Show
It's here at last: this year's Lymm Produce Show is on Sunday!  Do you remember last year how fabulously funky the orchard looked decked out in the Guerilla knitting?  Well here is a picture of it hanging up after I had washed it.  There were metres and metres of it.  The other picture is of the 3rd Lymm Scouts helping maintain the orchard in July.  The cubs and scouts needed a temporary meeting space while their hut was being rebuilt.  They offered to help at the orchard in exchange for us hosting them for a couple of meetings.  It was a win-win situation!  They did a great job cutting the hedge and creating some new habitats for bugs.  The craftwork they also did will be on display in the orchard on Sunday.  I hope it will be as eye-catching as the knitting was, and it will be a relief not to have to wash it afterwards!

Why not enter?
The show is run by a team of volunteers from the Oughtrington Community Orchard.  While there are rules and classes to ensure everything is run fairly, it is a relaxed day which celebrates all that is great about growing or making your own produce.  I enjoy marvelling at the monster vegetables which appear in the bigger county shows, but growing a metre long carrot isn't really my thing.  Even if you haven't got a garden, there are some categories such as baking which you can have a go at, and some great categories just for children.  Click on this link to browse the categories: http://www.oughtrington.co.uk/orchard/produce_show_2014.html

Or just come down and eat cake?
If you don't fancy entering, then pop down between 2-4pm when there will be all sorts going on.  There are all the usual favourites such as 'Ask the Expert', but new activities too, such as the Farmstart project selling their locally grown produce.

I hope to see you there...I'll be the one struggling in with a 2 metre tall sunflower!

Lisa Reid