Our tame potato grower John grows a huge variety of potato types, but the Pink Fir Apple potato has to be one of our favourites. This knobbly, fingerling potato (don’t bother peeling it!) originated in France and was brought to the UK in the 1850s, from where it probably made its way over to Australia, and like many heritage vegetables seems to have been selected for eating, not for looking pretty on a shelf or maximising yields. It’s a waxy potato, making it ideal for boiling whole (gently) and then chopping up for salads, but I quite like it very thinly sliced as a pizza topping (which I’ll be doing tonight…) or also as a gratin potato, where 
the pink skin leaves a lovely outline of the shape of each slice of potato. This week’s Queensland Blue pumpkin from The Old Farm is another example of a variety grown for taste (and also for storage, which was one of the prime advantages of growing pumpkin in a pre-refrigeration era), ideal for roasting in big chunks with some of subscriber Tracey’s rosemary that we’ve included in all $30 boxes this week.
Premium Fresh have sent down delicious Brussels sprouts and leeks this week, along with what may be the last carrots for the season; we’re also pretty lucky to have a handful of snow-peas (which, true to their name, are a rare legume that actually likes cold weather) in the $40 boxes from Richmond Farm, along with more delicious fennel and celery, and a couple of varieties of Asian greens. It’s the time of year when garlic wants to be turning into next year’s crop – John’s son Ben was planting garlic when I picked up this week’s potatoes – so after this week garlic will be less easy to come by, and the bulk offer listed on our website will no longer be available. The little green shoots that you may find in your garlic cloves are completely edible, but they’re also a sign that the clove is alive and doing what it’s supposed to do; if you find one, why not plant it in the garden and you might end up with a whole head of cloves for your investment!
