Taste
The freshness and taste of freshly picked fruit and vegetables straight from your garden offers an entirely different culinary
experience to that associated with the products found in most large shops. Home grown produce not only delivers much more
flavour and greater vitality but also reconnects us with seasonal eating. We are continually testing many varieties for their
distinctive flavours in our own in house trials, to enable us to incorporate the best in our home grown fruit and vegetable plans.
Nutritional value
Certain vegetables are known for their rich mineral content, others for their antioxidants which have proven medical benefits
in the avoidance of heart disease, arthritis and many other disorders. These values tend to diminish after picking if the produce
is not consumed immediately. In contrast, the criteria for presentation of produce in the supermarket is heavily concerned with
the way it looks,about uniformity of size and skin colour and availability throughout the year. None of these things have
anything directly to do with either flavour or nutritional value. In fact such criteria usually require the use of artificial
fertilizers, growth promoters, pest control techniques and after picking treatment to package and increase shelf life. These can
inevitably leave harmful chemical residues in the produce. The often huge distances the produce is transported inevitably
mean it is not longer fresh when it eventually arrives in your shopping basket reducing its healthy eating property value.
Growing nutritious food requires a better understanding of soil ecology and whilst we recommend that organic methods
should be adopted at all times when growing food for the table (i.e. those not involving the addition of harmful
chemicals), one of the aims for our own trials is to compare how subtle differences in organic growing methods may
lead to nutritional variations within crops. Go to page 2