15th June

Can you believe it?!!! Awarded to a company that sells food which is covered in dirt!

But it really is us, look...

We are required to be registered as a food provider with the council, even though we are a primary producer, and we received our rating this week following our inspection the previous week. I had to complete a questionnaire when we first registered which covered things such as cleaning, heating, storage, and disinfectants. The answers were all "none" or "N/A", so I was intrigued as to what to expect from our inspection.

Fortunately, along with being a friendly person, the guy who visited us was both sensible and pragmatic. When I explained that our organic approach meant that we wouldn't let any chemicals or cleaning fluids go anywhere near our field he got it.

The van was also inspected, and I think that he was impressed that I have created a shelf across the back of the van so that any tools are under the shelf, and only vegetables get put on the upper shelf.

It was good though to have had a review, and he gave some useful suggestions that we will take on board.

I'm not sure where we will display our rating, but we have more pressing things to be thinking about!

I am still playing catch up, and was therefore relieved last week that I didn't get a call from Thomas Tuchel to play in the world cup.

The next sowing of carrots is about 10 days overdue, but will be done tomorrow. The good news is that some of the first sowings are ready, and available for sale.

We have also added summer cabbage and sweetheart cabbage. The latter was suggested by one of our customers (thanks Jill)

Spinach and rainbow chard are also back on sale, along with cauliflower. The cauliflowers are smaller than those we have sold previously so we have reduced the price.

On the subject of cabbage and cauliflowers, we took these to the Lido stall on Saturday, but didn't have them available for sale for Friday deliveries. That didn't feel right, and I would therefore like to explain the reason for this.

I tend to update the website on a Monday with availabililty, and have to estimate what will be available for the coming Friday. I didn't think that the caulis or cabbage would be ready so didn't add them to the website. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were ready on Friday and therefore took them to the Lido.

We may have a similar situation this week as we have courgettes that are about an inch and a half long. I haven't got them on the website yet, as I can't be sure if they will be ready for Friday but if they are ready then they will be taken to the stall on Saturday. (They will be too big to sell the following week!)

I got my hair cut last week.

I can hear people thinking that comment is both irrelevant, and of no interest whatsoever! The reason that I mention it though is that my hairdresser told me that she had been telling all her customers about us and that we would be at the Lido on a Saturday morning. Apparently, that was the first time that any of her customers had heard of us. Any suggestions as to how we can get our name out there would be gratefully received!

For those that want to pop down on Saturday morning, we are on the left hand side of the car park (if you are coming out of the Lido) where the curry van used to be.

The most popular veg this week was beetroot, followed by the new potatoes

I am so disappointed that our tenderstem broccoli ended up on the 2028 compost heap

However, I got a different variety in the ground this week, and we believe that our purple sprouting won't be too long....