For their sublime aroma and intense sweetness, and for the sake of our desperately declining cherry orchards, do whatever it takes to find and eat some British cherries in July. We’re losing our cherry orchards at an alarming rate and the only way to save them is to eat more British cherries.
Just when it all seemed to be mercifully over, foot and mouth disease has returned in the UK. Keeping up with foot and mouth developments.
The re-emergence of foot and mouth disease in the UK last Friday is a tragedy, most of all for the blameless farmers who have seen their livestock struck down, but also for livestock farmers across the country; the meat trade, from hauliers and abattoirs to butchers and pie-makers; rural tourism businesses; and everyone who enjoys [...]
Early August and the harvest of the winter sown oilseed rape (Brassica napus, its edible varieties also known as canola) is well underway in the UK. Rape is combine harvested to yield its tiny black seeds, destined to be crushed to produce oil for food, industrial uses and, increasingly, biofuels. A growing number of farmers are cold pressing the seeds themselves to produce extra-virgin rapeseed oil.
An essential field guide for anyone who wants to know about arable crops: their identification, cultivation, history and uses.
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Check today’s price of milk in Tesco / Asda / Sainsburys / Waitrose – Ocado with mySupermarket.co.uk
The Rising Price of Milk
Two weeks ago, Tesco was widely praised in the media for announcing two initiatives: To increase the price UK dairy farmers receive for milk, while not raising the price of standard milk to [...]
No crop dominates the British arable landscape quite like rapeseed (Brassica napus, also known as oilseed rape, the edible variety as canola).
From the very beginning of April, previously mundane green fields of this member of the cabbage and turnip family suddenly erupt into luminous flower.
Across lowland England, great swathes of countryside are painted yellow. [...]
Philip Pullman once wrote that books are not eggs, his point being that every book is different whereas we expect every egg we buy to be the same. Agreed, books should not be treated as a commodity, but nor should eggs. Every egg is an individual creation, laid by a hen of some particular variety, fed and kept in a particular way, in a particular location.
The British are unusual in distinguishing apples for eating raw and for cooking. After years of decline, the Bramley, our best known cooker is enjoying new popularity.
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