This week’s boxes include the last avocados of the season from Avoland Avocados; we started buying from Paul and Maria in 2016 when they started picking fruit from their newly established orchard, the first commercial-scale avocado orchard planted in Tasmania, and in the years since we’ve bought at least seven tonnes of avocados, amounting to tens of thousands of individual fruit, this year working with new owner Brad. It’s always an exciting thing when a grower puts in a crop that is a little bit different to what everyone else is doing, and we’ve always been keen to support these initiatives, like Elphin Grove’s celeriac which we like to think we’ve turned quite a few people onto in the years that we’ve been putting this less common vegetable in our boxes.
Commercial farming relies on economies of scale, so diversification can be difficult, but when growers that we love to work with do introduce new crops it’s always good news as it gives us the opportunity to buy even more of their produce. Maurice from Dendra Market Gardens planted celery at our suggestion last year and it’s worked out so well for him that he’s planning to keep it as a permanent part of their growing roster; more recently Southern Fields added broccoli to their winter crops, and this week we’ve got their first kale harvest from a trial planting in $20 and $25 boxes, which at this stage is actually an exclusive to Backyard Bounty, but will hopefully be something that expands in the future.
