La Puce wrote:
Do you have a van coming by you once a week? My friend who leaves in
Veuil, (middle of absolutely nowhere), gets the bread van twice a week,
meat once a week. The veg she grows herself and shares with other local
farmers.

No such van where I live, but to be fair we are within the commuter
belt of Dublin, and have four good supermarkets (one Lidl) within 5
minutes drive from our home.
On the other hand, I often see the butcher's van on Sat mornings in my
other half's village, in a remote rural area.
I am not sure just how prevalent such services are, though.
And I recall when a child in the Hautes Pyrenees, that I saw the end of
the baker's and butcher's van service which coincided with my leaving
home for college. So your friend is lucky that the service is still
available to her.


I had signed to an organic home delivery, a scheme offering boxes from
£5 to £15. The first time I got 60% oignons roll eyes! I mentioned
it and they exclaimed that it's because they thought I was french lol!!
Still, I continued for a while, just so that I would help them at the
beginning of their venture. I stopped eventually fed up by the random
produces. I couldn't keep up with so many oignons!

I didn't even get that far :-)


This is madness - I would however put money for a chicken, but £6 is
my limit - once a week chicken though. I've got a friend who started
selling fruits and veg on the high street from a caravan. He sells 6
froots or 6 vegs for £1. I think that's pretty good and you find
students munching on raw carrots when they pass by.

A recent study has shown Ireland is one of the EU countries where food
is most expensive - in the top two if memory serves.
Organic food and food markets in Ireland have more to do with recently
acquired affluence and the so-called "celtic tiger" than with
fulfilling the need of procuring food each week - which is what French
food markets are about. Food can be fantastic quality, but the prices
are genuinely horrendous. You could only ever justify buying yourself
a treat - in effect, they are not a viable alternative to ordinary
supermarkets. And to be fair, supermarkets are not bad in Ireland, and
the food is of good quality. Although all my French friends and
rellies find it over processed - though less so than my modest
experience of the UK retail - and overpackaged (fruit, veg, meat and
cheese in particular).
On fruit and veg stalls - in season, we get particularly good
strawberries from the SE of Ireland. Plenty of growers get temporary
licences to sell them from the side of the road. A punnet with 300 or
400g of fruit can cost €5 or more. And when you are travelling long
distances, what greater pleasure is there than munching on aromatic
strawberries still warm from the sun? So, you stop, and you fork out.
But you ain't going to go and make jam with them!


I've decided to do more jam this year. There's lots of trees on our
allotments which fruits just fell and nobody seems to care. I'll use
them )

I get odd looks when I go plundering hedgerows for blackberries and
elderberries here :-)


Don't. It's nice to find out how the others live )

True, and thank you, but this is a gardening newsgroup, and to be fair
to those who log on to read about gardening, this time, I am really
shutting up :-)

Cat(h)