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The Spring Edition! The big red truck is back, the chatty Dutchman is back, the young-gun bakers are back, and more to come. Plus school workshops and more farmer chats.
Thank the the sweet benevolent seasonal gods, Spring has finally come around. Joy of joys! By all accounts, we’re in for a warm spring and a long hot summer. Sounds fantastic, sure, but it’s not all beer and skittles. A warm spring and early blooms make the risk of the inevitable November cold-snap all the greater for growers and pastoralists alike. Nevertheless, we are certainly looking forward to long sunny days, abundant produce and cold beverages. With that front of mind, let’s tuck in for the week at Harvest.
This week at Harvest
The big, red, very well-washed truck of Plants Direct is back! Tim and Karen are once again back in their regular spot with their brilliant array of edible plants, flowers, and stories to tell. So many plants, so many brilliant stories. We’re certain you’ll be as excited as we are to see them. Sweet Wheat, the young gun bakers Nic and Em are also returned from their European “research trip”. We’re sure that there was actual research conducted, by which we mean that they spent lots of time eating bread and pastries. Best research trip ever in our mind!
Frank the chatty Dutchman is back with his incredible bio-char too! We know that Frank and Karin are at the cutting edge of land and waste management in Tassie. But in the run of check-in conversations over the last few weeks, it has become clear that Frank’s influence extends around the globe, with export requests from Sweden to Canada to Argentina. Just one amongst many stories of incredible people doing incredible things at Harvest and beyond. Further, we’ve confirmed that Tas Natural Garlic and Tomatoes, Seven Springs and Hillwood Fresh Food Co. are all slated for return sooner rather than later, which is fantastic.
Plus, we’ve got both Saffron Tasmania and Hazelbrae Hazelnuts increasing their attendance from fortnightly to weekly. Also fantastic. Della Valle Gelato aka Scoopy have confirmed a start date, and in a truly surprising and wonderful turn of events, we actually managed to speak with Bruny Island Oysters who are quote “busting” to return to their home space at Harvest.
Truly, it is a special kind of happy that we feel for having been able to write those three paragraphs above. Not only that, there are many, many more of these paragraphs to come over the 2023-24 Spring-Summer.
Plus
In his capacity as resident Chef, Rhys delivered a workshop for the students at the Big Picture School yesterday. Teaching kids about food and cooking is a vital life skill, and eminently rewarding. Introducing new food and new ways of thinking about food to the next generation is part of our remit at Harvest. In doing so, we ensure that they are aware of and seek out the benefits of fresh, local food, cooking and sharing that food with others. This, we hope, is to become an ongoing engagement, from which we and the community will reap long-term benefits.
Lastly, we’ve been making more calls and having more chats with our seasonal primary producers. Social calls to check in after winter. The opportunity to catch up, check in and hear about their endless goings-on is one of the real joys of this job. We learn things, we feel things, and we get excited and invested in their lives and activities. We’ve heard tales of survival, we’ve discussed the fluctuations in temperature over winter, and its effects on the growing season, and we’ve enjoyed hearing about big dreams and ideas. We’ve been banging on about what is in store for Spring-Summer for pretty much all winter, and finally, we can stop talking and start seeing the action.
Thanks for reading! Happy first day of Spring everyone. See you in the morning for a big, beautiful market.