IN FRUIT
The mangoes continue to roll in. This is the best Northern Territory season I can remember. Now is when a lot of the better growers get underway, these farms are further away from the coast, they tend to pick when the fruit is mature, not just to chase the early high prices and the weather up there remains perfect for the fruit. The other product having an extraordinary season is the imported grapes. There seems to be a new variety of grape from there every week. These varieties are often quite similar but ripen earlier or later than the traditional varieties. My pick of the grapes this week is an early white variety, the Timpson seedless. They are sweet and good and ripen a week or so earlier than the traditional Thompson variety which are in the markets now but in our view maybe a week too early. Scarletts are the best of the red varieties and the blacks are good too but the whites are the pick of the three. Similarly to last week, there are many different pears all at their best right now. I talked about Tangelos in my pick of the week, definitely worth a try.
Great spring weather continues. A word of warning though a good number of our growers are now looking for rain to fill their dams for summer. Plenty of time still for that but we do need it to happen. In the meantime let's enjoy what we have. Imperfect eggplant, mostly the old-fashioned varieties have really tumbled in price this week. The newer varieties mostly grown in glasshouse have been able to maintain their price. Chillies are also coming on strongly as they do in Spring. Leeks, fennel and spinach are all good value. Asparagus continues to flood into the market I cant understand why the major supermarkets insist on continuing with imported product when such top quality Australian product is readily available. Lebanese cucumbers are easing in price and should be cheap next week. Finally, those snacking tomatoes which are so good to eat continue at cheap prices. I really don’t know why you would pay near the same money as you do for truss tomatoes as you do for these fantastic small tomatoes.
