There is a period in the growing season that begins at the tail end of winter, and goes through to mid-late spring, which is known as the “hunger gap”. Often spring is seen as a fertile time following from the cold of winter, but the flip side of this is that spring plantings need time to get established as the days get warmer (sort of) and longer. Thankfully in the moderate climate of Tasmania the only hunger the seasonal eater experiences is reduced variety in what’s available to eat; in countries that have a true winter, with snow and very limited daylight, eating locally really becomes a challenge unless you’re prepared with overwintered roots, grains, and preserves and ferments – it’s no accident that sauerkraut comes from northern Europe!
We’re planning a little competition in September which we hope might help you make the most of certain veg that most likely will be in your boxes just about every week for the next month or so, but we’re also trying to keep the variety up by being a bit creative with what gets included in your boxes. This week’s $20 boxes have a little pot of greengage jam from Mr BB, made towards the end of the summer when stone-fruit were plentiful, which we hope breaks up the apples and pears a bit! $40 boxes have delicious certified organic Tasmanian blueberries, preserved using a very modern technique – freeze-drying, which involves snap-freezing a product and then removing the moisture by subjecting the frozen product to a vacuum. (No, I don’t know how it works either, but it’s very clever…) These little bursts of summer are available for sale as an optional add-on as well – along with the forager foods apple bites which are also just fruit (dipped in juice in the case of the flavoured varieties), and we might also have a new all-Tasmanian freeze-dried product to add to the list soon…
