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Details:
Eating seasonally has dramatic and far-reaching implications. For a start,
the food is less likely to have travelled as far to meet demand. Think of apples - in season for a very short time, September
and October - yet they appear on our supermarket shelves day in, day out. These apples have been flown over from the USA,
South America, New Zealand... By only eating food when it is in season in our own country, we are helping to contribute to
a greener environment by saving food miles.
Eating seasonal food also means that we begin to understand our food better,
and appreciate the fruits of each season. It is, if you think about it, completely natural to enjoy sweet and fruity tomatoes
and strawberries in August; and the more dense and earthy root vegetables such as turnips and squash in January. To eat seasonally
is to eat the food we should crave naturally!
It is really tough to get used to eating seasonally, as we have all become
used to eating what we want, when we want it, irrespective of seasonality. Here is a month-by-month guide to seasonal food
in the UK to get you going:
SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Is it practical to eat only seasonal
food? Here's our three-point plan to eating/buying and cooking food with a clear conscience as far as the seasons are concerned...
1) You can eat an awful lot more seasonal food. You can eat salad leaves
in summer and through to early autumn and we can eat British asparagus, strawberries and tomatoes in summer; new potatoes
in early summer; and cabbage in autumn. It's tasty, nutritious and it saves fuel for transporting vegetables.
2) You can try cutting out some imported food. For example, stick to
traditional British apples, rather than foreign varieties. Have a go at preserving more food through traditional methods such as pickling (ideal for onion or red cabbage), by using
seasonal produce in chutneys and jams or by freezing (great for Bramley apple pies, apple sauces, vegetable soups etc).
3) Finally you can realise that non seasonal foods should be seen as
an occasional treat, rather than part of everyday cooking. Those Kenyan mange tout may be just what you want to give a bit
of variety to your diet in the middle of winter, but it seems wrong to eat them during the rest of year when there are excellent
seasonal alternatives, grown in this country.
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WHATS IN SEASON:
- The first spring vegetables will be appearing: aubergines, broccoli, celery, courgettes and
tomatoes. The end of the month usually sees the start of the (brief) English asparagus season.
- Fruit and Vegetables: carrots, kale, morel mushrooms, radishes, rhubarb, rosemary, spinach,
strawberries, watercress, wild garlic
Meat, Poultry, Game: spring lamb
Fish: cockles
VEGETABLES
- Continue to sow Lettuces, Radishes and Spring Onions in the soil
- Sow Cucumbers, Marrows, Pumpkins and Squashes under glass
- Sow Winter Cabbages and Late Summer Cauliflowers in a seed bed
- Continue to plant Onion Sets
- Plant out Onions grown from seed under glass into the soil
- In the north, plant Early Potatoes providing the soil is not excessively wet
- Plant Main Crop Potatoes
- Plant Onion Sets and Potatoes in the middle of the month unless the soil is excessively wet
- Plant Tomatoes in the greenhouse or in cold frame
FRUIT:
-
We’re at the starting block now – green shoots are promising handfuls of summer fruits! So it’s time
to begin a good feeding system, with high-nitrogen fertiliser for limes and lemons, blackcurrants and blackberries, magnesium-based
fertiliser for grape vines, and potassium feed (tomato feed) for the strawberry plants. A good way to remember each plant’s
needs is to laminate a cardboard label onto which you’ve written pruning and feeding times and types. Attach it to the
shrub or tree with garden twine. You can also cover your strawberries with cloche or fleece to encourage them to fruit a little
earlier.
Lawn care Spring:
- As the grass starts to grow you will need to prepare your lawnmower prior to starting to mow your lawn. It
is very important in early spring that you set the mowing height of the lawnmowers blade quite high, taking no more that one
quarter of the length of the grass off at a time, otherwise the lawn will become stressed. A little and often approach is
better when lawn mowing in spring. As the grass grows faster as we move further into spring you can increase the mowing frequency
and gradually reduce the height of cut of the mower to give the desired finish.
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