The UK still has a treasure trove of apples but like the rest of the food industry the drive for cheap food has placed a higher priority on uniformity and shelf life than taste. But there is hope. There are still delicious apples growing, maybe in your local area.

• Foxwhelp, Sheep’s Snout, Hogshead, Ducks Bill, Black Wilding, Brown Cockle, Monstrous Pippin, Burr Knott, Bastard Rough Coat, and Slack-my-girdle are a few of the thousand or so UK varieties of apple
• Some varieties of apple are not ready to come off the tree until December
• Some dessert apples are best stored for a month before use, an other varieties best stored in a cellar from October to March
• The new EU Single Farm Payment gives all types of farming £200 per hectare except orchards, unless they are destroyed by the end of the year.
• In 1870 when the UK population was less than half of today’s population, 186,000 acres grew fruit trees. Today this figure is 44,000.
• In Somerset recently the local super market were selling 9 varieties of apples; Royal Gala and Golden Delicious from France, Pink Lady, Braeburn, Granny Smith and Sundowner from South Africa, and Jazz, Braeburn and organic Pink Lady from New Zealand. The local Farmers Market had the varieties; Worcester Pearmain, Greensleeves, Spartan and Lord Lambourne all grown locally
• Only 20% of the apples sold in the UK are grown here
• In the last 10 years China has already planted more orchards than there are in Western Europe.
• New Zealand can produce the Cox’s Orange Pippin cheaper than we can but by the time it gets to Britain it tastes of kitchen towels dipped in glucose but it’s cheap and it looks right. If you want the taste you can fly them over, like kiwi fruit, and use the same weight in aviation fuel as the fruit!

Arggh. Typical of the food industry. How can we stop this.

1. Plant your own fruit trees. The varieties Ribston Pippin, the reverend W. Wilkes, the Belle de Boskoop and the Pitmaston Pinapple are recommended by George Monbiot of the Guardian (these facts were taken from a Guardian article in The Week magazine)
2. Find your local apple grower on BigBarn or at the local Farmers Market and encourage them to keep growing.
3. Buy windfalls, and rejects and start making apple juice or cider from your local apple grower
4. Register with BigBarn to help us get a local food section in your local supermarket for local apple growers to sell tasty, fresh, in season apples
5. If you have apple trees and excess apples put a local message in our newsletter for other BigBarn readers.

At BigBarn we are trying to renew the local food supply chain and tell the food industry that, we, the people, want fresh, tasty food and not uniform, bland, imports.

A farmer co-op owned local food section in every supermarket is the answer. Local farmers growing for local people giving the farmer 80% of the retail price for their produce. A real incentive to grow a wide range of produce and even convert to organic. We are working on it. To help register here for local special offers and our newsletter. And tell your friends.

Well we had a great time in Turin. The conference was a really interesting mix of people and cultures. Almost the whole world was represented and it was so well run it put anything in Britain to shame. 5000 people were organised, fed and watered in a multitude of different languages without a hitch as far as we saw.

The Salone Del Gusto was amazing .There were 4 huge halls full of stalls from all over the world with the most fantastic produce to sample and buy. We managed to meet lots of the people from the UK and sample lots of products. We brought some great ingredients to bring home and some local Italian products as well. The food we had during the trip was really good no matter where it was from. The coffee in every caf� was just brilliant and we drunk our fair share of cappuccino.

We shared a hotel with several of the other British delegates and met some great people. We spent time discussing the way other people are working across the country and gained lots of ideas that we can hopefully use in the future. We were able to add some people to BigBarn who were not included in the directory before. Carrotman received a lot of attention wherever he went and we even met a couple of people who were doing a similar thing to BigBarn in other parts of the world, although none of them wore a big carrot on their heads, funny that.

Since we came back I spent the weekend in London for my brothers birthday and we visited Borough Market to get food for the meal. It was fantastic, if not entirely local. There was some great meat, fish, vegetables, cheese and just about everything else you could want. I recommend a visit if you are in London. The meal was excellent as well.

My postbag has been overflowing with questions from new growers whose produce wasnt quite what they had expected. I thought I would try and answer a few of those here to save me writing the hundreds of replies needed:

Mrs Ponsonby of Gloucester writes:
My carrots are never straight and although large in size lack flavour

This is a common complaint for carrot growers Mrs Ponsonby. Carrots always take the route of least resistance when growing, any stones or even hard soil will cause them to kink and bend. To stop this happening dig the soil over more thoroughly remove any stones and ensure the soil is well drained and high in organic content. This is part of the preparation that needs to be done in the winter. As for the taste it seems that carrots only have a certain amount of flavour in them and the larger they are the more this is disappaited, try a smaller variety and pull them earlier.

Mr Althorpe of Wicken Fen writes:
I am desperate for a large marrow to enter into my local show, but mine seem to have stopped how do I encourage them to get to the large proportions I want.

The simple answer Mr Althorpe is that you cant. Marrows grow for a month and no more. The skill is to ensure that during their growing phase they have as much water and sunlight as possible this ensures they grow well in the month and get to maximum size.

Miss Rutter of Swansea writes:
My parsnips have completely split what am I doing wrong

Unusual for this season as it has been particularly wet. Splitting is often a sign of lack of water. Stones in the ground are also a cause. I would however suspect that this has something to do with the way you harvest them. Be careful, as split parsnips do not store well.

Master Winklestone-Brown of Winchester writes:
I would like to grow cabbages but do not know if I have the right soil

Cabbages grow best in soil, which is heavy in Potassium and Nitrogen both of which can be found in manure. Even if your soil is poor dig over with manure in the winter. To give your cabbages the best chance start them off in pots inside and replant them outside about a foot and a half apart in rows that are 2 feet apart. Good luck.

Please keep sending in your letters and emails by the looks of things it is keeping the post office going.

Well what a great trip. The BigBarn office all but closed last week as we all travelled to Turin for the Slow Food Festival. The organisers did a magnificent job of getting 5,000 foodies, mostly producers, together for 4 days in one huge hall to share and communicate their enthusiasm for good food.

One of the most enthusiastic and popular, judging by the number of delegates asking to have their photo taken with him, was of course Carrot Man. Like many a super hero he can fly, and was well received at the airport and by staff on the plane. At the conference he promoted BigBarn and introduced our presentation by dancing to Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’, at least that was the plan until we realised we were not allowed to play music. This did not stop him shadow boxing for 30 seconds instead, to grab the attention of the delegates assembled.

The dropped jaws and few shocked looks in the audience soon returned to normal as I explained the BigBarn message. We are putting together the infrastructure for the local food supply chain. Carrot man like many other people are mistaken to think we need to fight the power of the supermarket. We have the power. All we need to do is use it. We stopped GM and can insist on a local food section in every supermarket.

Farmers want to sell locally at a fair price and many are already listed on BigBarn. Having space to sell their produce in the supermarket will encourage producers to team up and in so doing provide other organisations with a place to buy locally produced food from one place.

A win, win, win situation for all. Wow. If you would like to help in this process please help us get as many people to register with us as possible by clicking here or sending this or any previous article to a friend to spread the word.

1 Chicken Portion
Mushrooms
Milk
Flour
Pre-made Puf Pastry
Potatoes
Carrots
Start by putting the chicken portion in the oven on a medium heat. Next its on to the white sauce.Start by heating the milk and flour together. Make sure you mix all the time to stop lumps forming. If the mixture is too thin then add some more flour, if it is too thick then add some more milk. It needs to be of a custard like consistency.Next slice the mushrooms up and add them to the white sauce. Turn off the heat under the white sauce and pour it into an oven-proof dish.When the chicken is cooked, cut it up and add it to the white sauce.Finally put some of the pastry on top, and put the carrots and potatoes in some water to boil.Put the pie in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the pie is cooked all the way through