If like me you are a lover of chilli but hate having your head ‘blown off’ by a rogue pod or seed read on.

Our featured producers are Jason and Steve, founders of the South Devon Chilli Farm. They been growing chillies since 2003 and now grow over 10,000 chilli plants every year, harvesting tonnes of fresh chillies. They are sold fresh or used in their range of chilli sauces, preserves and chilli chocolate. The business now has up to 8 ‘hot’ staff kept busy all year.

You can visit the farm and shop all year and wander among the fruiting chilli plants, sample all of the sauces, preserves and chocolate made on the farm and take away fresh chillies, chilli seedlings, plants and seeds (during the growing season).

Or you can buy fresh chillis and sauces from Jason and Steve in our MarketPlace or, next year, buy some seeds, also in MarketPlace, and grow your own, as I have.

Some of my lucky friends have been given chilli plants and I will be using my crop, together with a pack of a hotter variety, to make up chilli oil, filling some arty bottles with dried chillis, herbs and rape seed oil from the 5 litre can I always have in stock. Great Christmas presents!

Fresh English apples, fantastic food! One a day to keep the doctor away!

English apples are now in season but none are on the supermarket shelves. According to our calls to the big 3, they will not have them for 3 weeks. So please try your local farm shop and tell them to email us to join our apple map.

We have over two thousand varieties of apple in the UK but only 15 are grown commercially. Most, like the delicious Cox’s Orange Pippin, have been de-listed by supermarkets and as a result most of the trees have been destroyed by growers, also with the help of EEC grant aid!

Different varieties of apple are ripening on their trees between now and October and some are best stored for a few months to get the best flavour.

Many are now in season and should be available to us all. Most fruit and veg is most nutritious and tasty when it is fresh and ripe. Far too much of what we eat has been picked early to satisfy the needs of distribution and shelf life. As always to get the best, grow it, or buy direct.

To find your nearest fresh apple try your local farm shop and wouldn’t it be great if the local farm shop had an apple press so local people could take in their apples to make juice or cider. So start now and plant some trees this autumn and buy your fruit trees in MarketPlace.

All very exciting, to find your local apples try the BigBarn map and ask if them about their favourite varieties. Or ask your local farm shop about getting get a press so that next year you and the community can make apple juice or cider. And have a party.

Did you know that we have more varieties of cheese than the French?

Traditionally cheese was made by mixed farmers unable to get their fresh milk to the populous, giving us famous cheese ‘names’ like Gloucester, Stilton, Cheshire or Cheddar.

With the low milk price farmers in the home counties are fighting back with some great new cheeses.

It is a shame to see so much imports when we have so many fantastic cheeses. Especially seeing products like, cream cheeses made in Germany from English powdered milk.

So find and support your local cheese and watch out for entrepreneurial dairy farmers developing a cheese for your county, perhaps you can help create a new variety.

So all you have to do is use our map to find your local cheese, or for a delivery check our MarketPlace for cheese or see if there are any deals in our Deal of the Day page, and don’t be afraid to phone first and get a recommendation. And for inspiration try our recipes.