Market Report - UK seasonal update 14 March 2016

This week's market report from Wild Harvest features morel mushrooms from Turkey, leafy unwaxed lemons from Southern Italy, wild garlic and green asparagus as well as a whole host of other fruit and vegetables currently in season which you can see below:

Wild Mushrooms & Truffles

Summer truffles are yet to hit entry level, but Spring whites from Italy provide a cheeky fresh plaything.

We are now importing morels directly from Turkey. The quality is stunning.

South Africa are in the middle of their second flush of cep, again we import directly.

With these two fungal culinary giants in place, it would be churlish to focus elsewhere.

Girolles, (American) chanterelle and some very early St George mushrooms are on availability lists, but their time will come.

Fruits

We are now selling the first decent strawberry, the gariguette variety from France.

Sugar levels and pricing will improve, but apples and pears are fading and even a citrus fancier such as myself is craving variety.

Here’s a list of some good fruits for the second half of March:-

• Blood oranges


• Clementines


• Leafy unwaxed lemons from Southern Italy


• Finger limes


• A range of tomatoes of rapidly improving quality

I make no apologies for going green with the imagery this week.

The thaw is well underway and as you can gather from my tone above, spring vegetables are doing more to excite than fruits.

Peas and broad beans are underway. Crops are currently coming from Spain, but our sourcing will follow the sun to the UK before season end in September.

Wild garlic and green asparagus are now both coming from our green and pleasant land.

As above, enough of my GCSE level English. Please find below a list of just some vegetables in fine form:-

• Forced Yorkshire triangle rhubarb


• Monk’s beard


• Jersey royal spuds


• French white asparagus


• The first wet garlic from Egypt