The Joys of Picking Your Own

Now the sunny weather is here all sorts of fruit and veg has sprouted, blossomed and grown and is now ripe for the picking. Last weekend was a particularly sunny day and I spent a most enjoyable afternoon at a Pick Your Own farm, doing just that – picking my own fruit and veg.

I went with my mother and grandmother to Grove Farm, which is about an hours drive away but well worth the trip. They sell different fruits and vegetables over a 4-5 month summer period depending on what’s in season and growing at that moment. When we visited they had strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, fresh peas, spinach, new potatoes, beetroot, broad beans and carrots.

The fun thing is that when they say Pick Your Own they really mean it, as you are provided with a wheelbarrow, bags, boxes and a spade and sent to trundle through the surrounding fields and bushes, digging up and collecting the produce to your hearts content.

It can’t get any fresher than actually pulling your own carrots and beetroot directly out the ground! The intensity of carrot flavour is a just picked carrot is unbelievable!

The sun was shining as all three generations of our family chatted while lifting the leaves of the strawberry plants, hunting out the plump red fruits hidden underneath, sampling the odd one just to check their ripeness.

We came away laden with fresh produce – I see plenty of salads and fruity treats ahead! There are quite a number of PYO farms dotted around and I highly recommend hunting them out. The produce is often far cheaper than the supermarkets and aside from growing your own, you won’t find fresher or more local produce.