Eating local and in season

El_Dangeroso

I *try* to eat locally and with the seasons, but fail a lot as all I would eat in winter are meat, rhubarb, carrots, onions, turnips, potato and maybe the odd stored apple!

I notice there's now Irish strawberries in the supermarkets again. Apparently it's asparagus season but I've only seen asparagus from Peru.

Anyone got any top tips for Irish veg at the moment and where to get it? Barring the usual root veggies, most of the stuff in the supermarket seems to come from Spain or Isreal.

Macha

I get a home delivery of local (as much as possible) and organic fruit & veg from Home Organics:

http://www.homeorganics.ie/

This week as veg we got rhubarb, rainbow chard, a giant parsnip, carrots, fresh garlic, shiitake mushrooms, an uchiki kuri pumpkin (I think..) and some other stuff. Oh and last week they had organic asparagus from Spain and purple sprouting broccoli - yum!

They send you out recipes each week and keep them all on a blog:

http://homeorganics.wordpress.com/

The best part is bypassing the supermarkets and having the bag at your door when you get home from work!

Sapsorrow

Temple_Grandin wrote: »

I *try* to eat locally and with the seasons, but fail a lot as all I would eat in winter are meat, rhubarb, carrots, onions, turnips, potato and maybe the odd stored apple!

I notice there's now Irish strawberries in the supermarkets again. Apparently it's asparagus season but I've only seen asparagus from Peru.

Anyone got any top tips for Irish veg at the moment and where to get it? Barring the usual root veggies, most of the stuff in the supermarket seems to come from Spain or Isreal.

Ya its really hard, I ate strictly seasonal food for a few months about 4 or 6 years ago and man it was boring and we were buying off a realy exceptional farmer who grows a really good variety of stuff compared to most. You need to find a good grower at a farmers market tbh cos the supermarkets are sh*te, are you in Galway city? The woman Cait there on saturdays is good and should have a good selection of local seasonal stuff. Its asparagus season alright and strawberrys are in nowwadays too, and there should be plenty of green leafy stuff growing by now. Mushrooms too are always about. Would you ever consider growing some bits in a few windows boxes? Its dead easy and you'll always have a supply of green leafy stuff that way all year round. You can grow 'cut and come agains' every time you cut em they grow back so you have a continous supply and they're usually happy out in a window box.
Oh if you are in Galway check out Suaimhness in Renmore (across from the football pitch, at the very bottom corner where the dairy is), its a FAS scheme/business and they grow loads of stuff and you can just call in and pick stuff out of the ground to buy and they used to be great value. I used to cycle over every few days to stock up I loved it. If no ones around theres a price and weight list and you just write it in the book and leave the cash behind, very old school Apologies if you're not in Galway and I'm getting you muddled up with someone else, brains a bit frazzled.

EDIT: oh ya sprouting brocoli should definately be out by now!

El_Dangeroso

Wow thanks for the suggestions guys, you're right I'm in Galway, never heard of that place in Renmore, hope it's still around that sounds great!

The market is excellent for veg, unfortunately if I buy on Saturday, then anything I haven't eaten looks decidedly miserable by Wednesday.

I have made many many forays into gardening, I don't know what the opposite of green fingers are but I have them.:)

Everything I touch seems to die on me, my dad once grew me a pot of chives in a bucket. They were well established and growing well and are supposedly low maintenance, they turned yellow after a week on my balcony.

Macha

Op sorry. Being Dublin-centric again!

How about these guys?

http://www.greenearthorganics.ie/

Sapsorrow

Oh when you buy stuff fresh like that if its something stalky just chop the ends off and get them in a bowl of water to keep them fresh, that works for most things even brocoli, root veg etc. Definately check out Suamhness (not sure about the spelling) if you can they were so brilliant, a real asset to the city. The garden there was so beautiful too, I really miss going there actaully and you don't get fresher than when you pick it from the ground yourself. There used to be a really cute guy working there me and my friend used to go over together just to chat him up half the time!

El_Dangeroso

taconnol wrote: »

Op sorry. Being Dublin-centric again!

How about these guys?

http://www.greenearthorganics.ie/

Was looking at the small veg box which would suit me and OH's needs, and half of it comes from overseas, the rest I can get in the market. Was hoping some local farmer had magically managed to grow avocados in Connaught but no such luck

Did people just eat the same 5 things over and over again before the widescale importation of vegetables? Actually I could probably find wild things could I pick myself.

Just found this:

http://www.scoutingireland.com/nstchat/Wild/edible.html

Knew about nettles but didn't realise that dandelion leaves were edible! Pretty nutritious they are by the looks of it too. Here's me spending €2 for a head of lettuce!

You think it would be OK just eating straight from a field(non-road adjacent) after a little wash?

Macha

Yeah definitely go for the gathering. I was at an organic food stall in Dublin a few weekends ago and they had wild garlic for sale - that's the sort of thing you can get:

http://www.rivercottage.net/WhatsGoodNow/

Darkginger

There's a load more stuff that can be gathered from the wild, too. I think Roger Phillips is the name of the guy who wrote one of the definitive books on the subject - 'Wild Food'. Don't forget seaweeds, samphire and seafood (mussels, winkles, yay) too, and then there's all the stuff that can be made into wine - gorse, elderflowers, elderberries (if you haven't taken all the flowers!), rowan, blackberries, sloes etc. As others have said, this is wild garlic (ramsons) season.

Even with the opposite of green fingers, if you plant a few basic green courgette seeds (I find the yellow, globe etc. varieties are much harder to grow), you'll probably end up with more courgettes than anyone could reasonably be expected to eat. I know this, I have 10 jars of courgette pickle leftover from 2 years ago! Radishes are easy (and fast) too. Check your local garden centre for cabbage and cauli plants - I have so far failed to kill those, so they must be pretty hardy (I have a lot of homemade picallili, too)! Nasturtiums are simple, and both flowers and leaves are edible, and make a good, peppery addition to salads.

There seem to be a lot of Irish blueberries around at the moment, also peppers and chillis (oh how I wish for a greenhouse!). Peas and beans should be along soonish.

In winter, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, parsnips, turnips, swede, spuds, carrots, leeks and onions should all be available from local sources.