Another visit preliminary to the schedule for 2015 (December 16th 2014 to be precise) was to Seasonal Salads just outside Stokesley in North Yorkshire. Run by Barbara Beverage the site is just one fifth of an acre, land which Barbara rents from  a local farmer. On it she has erected a polytunnel in which she grows a plethora of salad crops from which she picks – assisted in the summer by some outside plantings – exquisite micro-salads.Barbara’s planting method is not far from natural seeding as she lets her array of varieties grow with minimum interference. She then picks the young tender leaves making up salad mixes which vary as the different varieties come into germination and growth.

Little did we know as we made a few pictures, that within weeks a gale force south westerly would render her tunnel covering as useless. Badly torn by  the gale, there was no alternative but to ditch the cover! The weather then continued on the wild side with snow and further gales with the result that it was February before a new tunnel cover was in place. Amazingly, snug beneath the snow, the salad crops by and large were to survive the onslaught. As the anniversary of the polythene saga approaches, Barbara has won the title of Taste of Herriot Country Local Producer of the Year for 2015.

For more information see Seasonal Salads

[Double clicking on any of the images below will open up that image up in a slideshow format. You can then run the slide show using ‘left’ and ‘right’ buttons.  Personally I prefer to go also to full screen having opened the slide show – F11 on my PC, don’t forget to get out of full screen is the same button , not ESC!]