A new season erupts…
Hands are above head, face is down; I know, I know, dropped the ball a bit with the newsletters.
However we’re glad to say, they’re back by popular demand!
It makes sense for this newsletter to be a bit of a “series recap”, of how the season began and where we’re at now as well as what we’ve been up to…
We last left you in March, which really is really the dog-end of the prior season. All of the winter produce is used up and spring seedlings aren’t planted up yet. You’d be a fool to do so. Final frost date is 4th May and besides that, farmers dare not give their waterlogged fields but a glance for fear of tearing them up.
March and April were, as you no doubt are trying to forget, miserable. 50% more rain than average and 30% down on average sunlight hours. It’s the lack of sunlight that really doubled down on a crap start to the year. Without sunlight, plants can’t photosynthesize and create their own food. It can have knock on effects down the line in terms of yields too.
For example, asparagus season came a couple of weeks later than normal, which amputates precious revenue from farms who rely on just 6 weeks of good yield to make the gamble of one crop in a field pay off. Tomatoes were destined to the same fate, despite their scientific advantage with a warm cuddly glasshouse. They need sunlight to grow strong and produce good yields.
The turn did come, eventually. Since mid-May the growing season has been on afterburners. Lettuces, turnips, radishes, artichokes and salads start to arrive in swells and gosh, what a joy.
If you ever wondered what “delayed gratification” really meant, then embracing the seasons is a perfect example. It’s something we believe is key to the success of a better food movement. It's foundational to understanding how to cook and eat but also serves as a creative catalyst that steers us away from unsustainable strawberries in February and onto 1001 ways to eat asparagus in May.
It not only works as it should on a practical, ecological level, but on an emotional one too. (If anyone is skeptical about how important a population's emotional sway is on their choices, just look at recent political movements in the past decade.) If we could get people to be as enthusiastic about what they put in their body and their children's bodies, as they were about small boats not coming across the Channel, we’d all be in for a brighter future. Maybe the movement needs a red faced, fag smoking, planet-hating idiot behind it? God, it’s Jeremy bloody Clarkson and his farm…! Lets not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, ay?
Time for a little more respair…
As our UK season erupts, the Valencian Citrus season ends, and what a season it’s been. For those unaware of the story, Todoli Citrus Foundation fruit is the only product we import from beyond our shores. Not a decision taken likely and not one we sought out. Except for when we met Vicente at Toklas Restaurant (old friend of Vicente, Matthew Slotover, Owner and Founder of Toklas originally imported the first shipments of fruit and distributed via his restaurant.)
We attended a tasting and talk, about what the foundation stood for, where it was from, and where it was going. It was something we knew we wanted to contribute to and be a part of.
From October 2023 Shrub took over the distribution of Todoli Foundation citrus fruit for its first real large scale commercial venture. A match made in heaven and almost an inevitability. Working with and learning from Todoli Citrus Foundation has been a phenomenal experience and after six months of trading, in all honesty, has left us with more questions than answers, such is the scale of the subject to learn. But that's what we’re on this earth to do…
We look forward to the new season this September with limes and green citrus.
It’s the UK produce that reigns supreme for the next 6 months however. A few weeks ago we had the privilege of visiting Paul and Chris from “Blackbee Honey” in Bruton, Somerset and fulfil a lifelong ambition of donning a bee suit and inspecting bee hives; an experience that for one reason or another is quite moving…
Paul and Chris’s work in campaigning for tighter policy to protect honey quality and traceability is inspiring as is their knowledge not only in beekeeping but their ability to be a mouthpiece, representative and buyer for scores of other apiarists around the country.
Yet another disciple in the pursuit of a more sustainable food future we visited this spring was Josiah Meldrum of Hodmedods, Suffolk. This person and organisation must be one of the most humble yet fundamental catalysts and accelerators in the demand and future of sustainable arable farming. Hodmedods provide a platform that allows farms to experiment, transition and pioneer sustainable agricultural practices and also cultivates a pool of knowledge and air of collaboration. An impact and change maker for sure and we look forward to working even closer with Hodmedods in the near future.
Chef visits to farms are ramping up and we’d heavily encourage you all to set aside some time to arrange a visit with us to a number of different farms and meet the people that start the process that we’re all a part of. Team Apricity came to visit Clearwater Farm at the beginning of their first season to assist in some planting up and bed prep, Silo providing much the same service to Sinead at Aweside farm and more recently, Dorian can to Knepp marked garden to learn about soil health, rotations, market gardening and of course, planting up!
While on the subject of farm visits, Alberta’s (Alistair Munro) is well worth mentioning as official farm visit caterer! Superb subs, dips, hot broths, gravy and soup have kept us nourished and inspired, if not a little lethargic! Ali, thanks for keeping team Shrub and our friends well fed as usual!
For now, that's it from us but we’ll endeavour to keep these newsletters more regular and celebrate the doers of the world that make it a more delicious, sustainable and generally more pleasant place to be!
