What's in Season ?
A month by month guide to fruit and vegetables in season in the UK

Go to:-    June  |  July | August | September | October | November |

 December  |  January |  February  | March  |  April  |  May

This section highlights foods which are currently in season to enable you to make the most of locally grown produce when it’s at its best. The aim is to get people back in tune with nature by highlighting fruit and vegetables which would be naturally mature, rather than forced in greenhouses or imported from overseas.

Produce which is in season tends to have a better flavour and texture with the maximum amount of nutrients, but if quality isn’t enough to encourage you to ‘eat local - eat seasonal’, there are two other important factors to take into consideration which may convince you :-

    • Supporting your local economy thus ensuring jobs and keeping small communities thriving.
   • Taking advantage of lower prices due to reduced transport and packaging and gluts .

For those who are concerned about the “carbon footprint “ of produce, one important factor to remember is that produce doesn’t have to come from the other side of the world to have a heavier footprint. Crops grown and forced in heated greenhouses, whilst grown locally, can have a heavier footprint than the same crop which has been grown in natural sunshine in another country. For example, if you are seeing UK grown Aubergines in the shops in May, it’s more than likely that artificial heat has been used to grow them.

The seasonal produce featured in these sections will mainly be those which are capable of having reached maturity without the aid of excessive artificial heat.

Obviously there are some foods which can’t easily be grown locally, and it’s not the intention to suggest that these be given up. However, it seems absurd to forgo the pleasures of seasonal, locally grown produce at the time when they are at their peak with more flavour and nutrients, in favour of items which has been imported from half way around the world.

It’s as well to remember that in many cases, as soon as produce is picked, it starts to lose its viability therefore locally produced food which is sold at farmers’ markets, is likely to be fresher than those sold in supermarkets.

For this reason we have also added an interactive map showing the locations of farmers' markets near you and whilst initially we will be featuring the UK, we hope to be adding other areas of the world in the future.