Tales From The Orchard

Nuts and, walnuts in particular, have a certain vernacular around them, green, wet, dry, kernel. How do they all fit together in the annual life cycle of the tree? Let’s take a look and what makes a walnut a walnut. First to emerge from the spring sunshine are the green walnuts. These vibrant little globules are walnuts when they’re half formed, they’re little balls of tannic possibility, nuts before their hard outer shell is formed. They’re ripe for pickling, and are often used in Italy to produce nocino, a rich, dark Italian liquor. Walnuts are typically one of the last...

Agroforestry is one of those vague and nebulous terms which broadly speaking means farming with trees. But, I’ve yet to see a British farm that doesn’t have a tree of some sort in and around the place. So, we focus down in on the two key methods most prevalent in the UK; alley cropping and wood pasture (linked blog). Alley cropping is a way of converting an existing open arable field, into strips, or alleys of cereal crops, cropping the ally bordered by rows of fruit or nut producing trees. These alleys can be adapted to the width of farm...

A topical Friday to be addressing this subject, as the UK melts in it’s third day of baking heat, there is one word to answer why sustainable nut farming matters; resilience. When we speak about sustainability, it’s often in vague terms around notions of nature and harmony, and whilst that has its place, we like to anchor claims in verified data. One of the reasons agroforestry has such potential, is that there’s a base of evidence from Canada and France showing key, tangible results which foster a resilience to the harsh realities of a changing climate. Primary amongst these, at...

Cashew Hummus The creamiest, smoothest hummus made with activated cashews in place of chickpeas.  A great dip and accompaniment to a Mediterranean feast. Serves 4-8 200g raw cashews 1 garlic clove 20g tahini 1 lemon, juice only  20ml olive oil Sea salt 3-4 ice cubes Ice cold water   What makes these cashews unique? Sourcing from the Zaynte group in Goa, India, these organic cashews offer a transparent supply chain direct from a group providing excellent quality nuts alongside excellent quality conditions for those working in the company. This contrasts against the often opaque supply chains in the cashew industry...

The surprising symbiosis of chicken / egg / and cobnut comes to light this weekend to celebrate the annual agroforestry open weekend, a nation-wide event to showcase many of the early adopters of this dual use farming system.

The January Long Read  - a short-form antidote for the slow food observer