Asparagus

The Vale of Evesham is the place to be this month if you’re a fan of asparagus. The 2013 season started slowly, but it’s been worth the wait.  We are taking every opportunity to eat these delicious, crisp, tender spears at the moment.  Our favourite sources for this luscious luxury are Reville’s Farm Shop in Defford and Collis’ Farm shop on the A44 near Broadway.  Both sell wonderfully fresh asparagus, straight from their own fields. Wayside Farm Shop sell local asparagus, asparagus quiche and even asparagus scones! In fact, everyone goes a little aspara-crazy around here at this time of year at the annual Asparagus Festival.

Apples

I love farm shops. These rural gems provide a fascinating glimpse into the cycle of life on the farms and orchards in the Vale of Evesham. They also hold new surprises on each weekly visit, from season to season throughout the year.

Our village is surrounded by orchards, so it’s usually hard to miss the apple harvest in autumn. But we have been disappointed this year. During blossom-time this spring the bees and their fellow pollinators were unable to fly, due to incessant rain. The result – our apple tree and most others in our village, are bare. Even hubby, who is pretty expert at scrumping, arrives back from each walk with barely a bulge in a pocket these days.

However, a wonderful surprise awaited us at the Wayside Farm Shop this week – an oasis of apples! Lovely, local apples, with such low food miles, that they could have walked there. And the variety – Russets, Jonareds, Spartans, Crispins, Howgate Wonders, in addition to the more common Cox’s, Bramleys and Galas. What a delight.

As most of the apples were the same price, we filled our bag with a selection of varieties tha we hadn’t tried before.  How exciting. We’ve been taste-testing our haul all week. The only problem…… we can’t remember which is which. Oh, never mind. We can always pop back to the farm shop for more.