Mia and I went to visit my mum last week; the first time we've seen her since the end of January. Mia is vegetarian so mum had kindly bought lots of veg-based goodies to eat and also gave Mia this gorgeous cook book - 15 minute vegan by Katy Beskow. Mia has been doing lots of cooking during lockdown so I'm sure this will be well used.

I flicked through it on Friday night and the minestrone recipe caught my eye, then when in the veg garden on Saturday morning I realised I had many of the ingredients so decided there and then to make it for lunch. I can confirm it is super quick and so fresh and full of the flavours of summer. Read on for the recipe but first a little background to our lockdown 'no-dig' veg plot.

As I'm sure is true for many people during lockdown, this is the first year we have grown so many vegetables. Right at the start we decided to create a vegetable garden and researched on You Tube how best to do it. We spent many a happy evening watching Charles Dowding's You Tube videos learning about 'no-dig' gardening - I know right - how brilliant! Here's a link to his website so you can find out more.

We chose 'no-dig' for speed (and let's face it ease), Charles made it look so simple. You build a frame on the ground and load soil or compost straight onto the grass which eventually rots away. We had a few persistent thistles and buttercups growing through from the pasture but they were actually a pleasure to pull out!

​(The picture at top left was taken on 3rd April, bottom left on 22nd May and bottom right on the 18th of July.) 

The other thing we found really helpful in planning our plot layout was an online Vegetable Garden Planner called GrowVeg. You can use it to design the layout of your garden and also to journal what you plant and harvest when. We have one bed of brassicas (cauliflower, kohl rabi, brussel sprouts, radish, cabbage and kale); one of legumes (french beans, broad beans, peas) and potatoes; a third with onions, garlic and root crops such as carrots, parsnips and turnips; and a final bed with sweetcorn, courgettes, squash, beetroot and salad leaves. We've been harvesting for a couple of weeks now but it is only now that the legumes are coming into their own. For the minestrone I used a mix of fresh peas and broad beans and I substituted rocket for watercress. Read on for the recipe...

As it's still only February, the wild garlic flowers aren't out yet and many of the leaves are quite small, but some were a bit more advanced and large enough for me to pick a handful. Wild garlic is fabulous with fish, chicken and in salads. It can also make a punchy pesto, as it kind of covers the basil and garlic in one. These wild garlic pancakes were first introduced to my children  when they attended our local forest school on a holiday day camp. If you want to know what Children of the Forest is like see our review here. They welcome non-local children on their holiday clubs so if you fancy giving your little ones a taste of the wild on your holiday (and you a day off!) take a look. They also have a family festival coming up on 5th April with fun for everyone. Find out more on their website. 

I always like to have a savoury pancake on Shrove Tuesday before leaping into the lemon/sugar/chocolate spread territory. Any excuse to double, triple or even quadruple pancake! Usually I do a mushroom/cheese/ham crepe type affair but I think tomorrow I might combine these two recipes and do wild garlic pancakes with some sautéed chicken, perhaps in a cheese sauce, to make a sort of chicken kiev crepe fusion. Hmmm. Salivating already at the thought of it. Here's the recipe for wild garlic pancakes. 

Ingredients: 

10tbsp self raising flour
3 eggs
milk (see method for quantity)
a few leaves of wild garlic (rinsed and patted dry on kitchen towel)

Method:   
Mix the flour and eggs together with a pinch of salt. Add enough milk to make a thick creamy batter if you would like thick pancakes (or drop scones). Add more milk to make a thinner batter (the consistency of single cream) if you like thinner pancakes. Chop or tear a couple of wild garlic leaves and add to the batter. 

I had a date night with my youngest yesterday evening as my husband is abroad filming and my daughter was caving in the Mendips with school. They are both almost entirely vegetarian these days, so when Felix and I are on our own we like to indulge in a little meat (he likes to remind me he is a "meativore!". He requested chicken kiev, but to be honest I worry about the provenance of some of the cheaper, reconstituted chicken you get in many of the supermarkets. Instead I like a proper chicken breast that I know has been well-reared and organic where possible. While on my walk this morning I hit on the idea of making our own using the wild garlic I had picked. So I put my money where my mouth is and stopped at our newest local farm shop Fordmore which is on the A373 between Cullompton and Kentisbeare. Their exciting news is that a cafe will be opening on 23rd March so in time for our Easter visitors.

Fordmore have their own organic pasture dairy cows and organic free-range chickens. I like that the fresh meat is packaged for you in paper rather than plastic. It was more expensive than the standard chicken in a supermarket but I was really quite surprised to see that it was half the price of organic, free range chicken from a well-known supermarket chain. I paid £9.99 a kilo and got four really meaty breasts for just over £11. One breast would easily do two people in something like fajitas or a stir fry when vegetables are added.

Besides the chicken, I also stocked up on their smoked and unsmoked back bacon for the freezer. Their outdoor-reared pork is sourced from the Snells at Kentisbeare (very close to Blackdown Yurts and relatives of the last true farmers who lived here at Halsbeer Farm). We see their happy piggies in the fields on the way to the school bus in the morning! I've also taken a punt on some of their more unusual items in the form of thai chicken burgers - we often have a "build your own burger" night on a Saturday at home. Depending who is choosing that week it may take the form of vegetarian bean burgers, beetroot and halloumi, chicken, lamb or beef. We sometimes add houmous to make it a bit moroccan in style, or avocado, pesto, chilli mayo and the like, but never before have we tried thai-style. I shall have to consider what accompaniments to serve with them and what type of bun. Hmmm. Anyway, I digress, back to today's recipe...

So called because I foraged the wild garlic (not the chicken!). I adapted a crumb recipe from Joe Wick's book Lean in 15 (The Shift Plan). This book was recommended to my by some neighbours in the village when my husband and I were trying to get a bit fitter and lose some weight. Felix and I first made "my oaty chicken" as Joe does it in the book and it was really good. I changed it to create a kiev and added a bit of mozzarella and parmesan cheese but you could leave that out if you were dairy intolerant (or didn't have any to hand).

Ingredients (to serve 2): 

• two (preferably organic and free range) chicken breasts
• a small handful of wild garlic leaves, rinsed and patted dry on kitchen paper
• a handful of grated mozzarella (or other cheese will do)
• 50g rolled oats
• 40g ground almonds (or flaked almonds blitzed)
• 10g finely grated parmesan
• 1tsp smoked paprika
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 egg, cracked into a shallow bowl and whisked
• 2tbsp plain flour, in a shallow bowl
• 1tbsp coconut oil (or sunflower/vegetable/olive oil, whatever you have to hand and prefer to use really)

Dust the filled chicken breasts with flour, dip into the beaten egg, shaking off any excess, then coat on all sides with the oat/almond/parmesan mixture, pressing it onto the chicken to ensure an even coating. ​

In his recipe, Joe Wicks, flattens the chicken breasts out to form a sort of escalope so they are thinner to fry. As we have kept them fatter they will need longer cooking. I started mine off in a frying pan over a medium heat in which the oil had been heated before popping the chicken in.

Brown for a few minutes on each side and then pop the whole pan (if oven proof) into your oven or Aga at about 180 degrees (160 fan) to finish cooking all the way through. Mine were really quite chunky so I gave them about 25 minutes but you can check they are cooked by cutting into the thickest part to make sure it is no longer pink. ​

These were really delicious. The chicken was so moist and succulent, the flavour of the wild garlic just enough without being overpowering. The mozzarella was pleasingly stringy in the middle and deliciously browned where it had peeked out during cooking. I really liked the addition of a bit of parmesan to the crust, where you get lovely texture from the oats and a hint of almond. Scrummy.

Change it up: 

If you prefer a more conventional Kiev without the mozzarella filling,  chop the wild garlic and squish it into a bit of chilled butter and salt and pepper and use that to fill the chicken instead.

If you don't want to bother with a crust just wrap the chicken breast in a couple of pieces of bacon after filling and then secure with the cocktail sticks.

Obviously if you have a nut allergy just substitute more oats or some breadcrumbs. I have heard you can use crunched up cornflakes but I've not actually tried that myself. Just experiment (some might say "play with your food", it's fun. 

​Yum yum. Enjoy! And have fun flipping pancakes tonight!

We are fortunate in having well-developed hedgerows here at Blackdown Yurts, which this year are bursting with berries and hazelnuts. I recently met a woman who worked on the farm fifty years ago and she said that one of the buildings in the farm complex used to have a nut store - presumably to store the abundant hazelnuts and perhaps there were other nut trees in the orchards back then too. I have just pledged to plant a tree on 30th November for the Woodland Trust's Big Climate Fightback and I'm going to plant a walnut (more about that next time). 

For now I want to share with you two toppings for your toast (or crumpets - it's definitely crumpet season now isn't it?!): a hedgerow jelly and a chocolate nut spread (basically home-made Nutella). The former is smooth and seed-free, the latter a bit more grainy than the shop-bought variety. While it is good on toast, I think it would also work nicely as a base instead of frangipane for a pear tart for example. So here goes read on for the recipes...

I used this recipe from BBC Good Food as a guide. You really can use whatever berries you can find (or buy) for this with an equal weight of cooking or crab apples. I foraged most of mine including elderberries, blackberries, rowan and sloes, but I added a few strawberries and blueberries I had in the fridge that were a bit past their best. I'm lucky in having several apple trees in the garden including a cooker, so I used those. We do have a crab apple tree but this year it has had a very poor crop indeed. 

How to make it:

Making a jelly is really quite simple. The only difference between that and a jam is that a jelly has the seeds and skins removed whereas a jam has it all left in. As I don't have a jelly bag, I placed the cooked fruit in a sieve lined with a muslin set over a jug instead. I folded the muslin over and weighed it down with another saucepan and heavy item to encourage the juice to run out overnight. 

Once the juice has run measure it and use 500g (1lb) of granulated sugar per 600ml (1pt) of juice. Pop both in a pan and heat gradually 'til the sugar has dissolved then up the heat to a rolling boil until the jelly reaches its setting point. I test this by having a saucer in the freezer, taking it out and popping a teaspoonful of the jelly on it. If it wrinkles when pushed and starts to set then it's ready to take off the heat and bottle. As it's boiling I tend to skim off the scum with my grandmother's skimming ladle. 

Whenever I use it I remember her and all the jams and jellies she used to make - I remember her crab apple and mint jellies in particular. She had the most amazing soft fruit cage chock full of raspberries, red-, white- and blackcurrants and gooseberries. She also had an incredible bramble hedge that separated her kitchen garden from the paddock. I am forever attempting to emulate her in my kitchen garden but I will never even come close. Growing things was in her blood - she grew up on a strawberry farm in Cambridgeshire and was a land girl during World War 2, before moving to Surrey and establishing such a stunning garden with asparagus beds, rhubarb, beans, cut flowers, apples and much more. I remember helping during the summer holidays to harvest and prep fruit, veg and flowers with her for the weekly WI market. 

​Anyway, I digress. Once that setting point is reached, remove from the heat and if some scum still remains pop in a little butter to help it disperse. Then bottle into sterilised jam jars and label. Enjoy on hot buttered toast, or maybe a muffin or a crumpet. Autumn comfort food at its best. 

This has been the first year since arriving at Blackdown Yurts that I have noticed such a bumper crop of hazelnuts on the trees lining the driveway. They are literally raining down so I thought it would be criminal not to do something with them. I will roast some and keep for adding to muesli, granola and crumble toppings but I wanted to try my hand at a nut spread in homage to Felix's favourite toast topping - yes you guessed it - Nutella. Nothing can quite come close to the real thing - how they get it so smooth is anyone's guess. However, this was fun to try and I think will be good as a base in other recipes as well as a topping for pancakes or bagels. 

How to make it:

First collect your nuts and find yourself a willing nut cracker! Felix did ours - we found the nut crackers worked better than the hammer. Make sure you check the nuts for bits of shell - you don't want anyone cracking a tooth. We used 150g of shelled nuts and toasted them for a bit in the Aga to enhance the flavour and dry them out a bit. You could use a low oven and just keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn. 

Once cool place in a food processor or blender (I used my Nutribullet) and  add 2tbsp of maple syrup, 2tbsp of coconut oil, 2tbsp of cocoa powder of cacao nibs and between 50and 75ml of water. Blend until smooth. I didn't add enough water on my first try and you may want to experiment a bit with how much syrup you add as we found ours wasn't really sweet enough (compared with the real thing) but I like to think it's a whole lot better for you and doesn't contain any palm oil. 

The hedgerows are bursting with blackberries at the moment so I'm searching for inventive ways to use them. I like my children to have healthy snacks for tuck or lunch at school so I decided to experiment with a sort of fruit/granola bar. These are vegan and sugar-free, the fat coming from coconut oil and the sweetness from ripe bananas, the riper the better so they are a great way to use up bananas that have been hanging around a little too long. 

Method:

Peel the bananas then smash them up in a bowl using a fork.
Add the melted coconut oil and mix together.
Mix all of the dry ingredients (except the blackberries) together.
Beat the banana/oil mixture into the dry ingredients and then add nearly all of the blackberries. Fold gently so you don't crush all the fruit. 

Turn into a traybake tin lined with greaseproof paper and decorate with blackberries on top. 
Bake in an oven at 180/fan 160 for about half an hour to 45 minutes until cooked. 
When cooled cut into squares and keep ​in an airtight container. Use within three days.

So it seems Sober September is a thing this year. Last year I did Sober October and then I kept on going so this September is my twelfth month with no booze. I feel fantastic on it. I'm sleeping so much better, I've lost weight and I no longer feel guilty for drinking more than I should. However I still like to have an adult drink option in the evening, especially on a Friday night which used to be my gin and tonic time. 

I turned to a book called DRY by Clare Liardet for ideas on what do to with blackberries. I had in mind a "shrub" which is a blend of apple cider vinegar and honey flavoured with berries. It makes a sort of country cordial you can then dilute with sparkling water for a refreshing drink or hot water for a warming mugful. Clare uses blackcurrants in hers but blackberries work just as well. 

While looking for the shrub recipe I was delighted to see a "mocktail" recipe for a Blackberry Seedlip Smash. It has lime and sugar a bit like a mojito but muddled together with blackberries and Seedlip Spice 94, an alcohol free gin alternative instead of rum. Enjoy over ice, topped up with fizzy water. Delicious. I also made a version without the Seedlip for the children which was also lovely so if you don't have Seedlip you can just do that. 

Ingredients: 

For 1. 
5 large blackberries
1/2 a lime
1tbsp sugar
crushed ice
30ml Seedlip Spice 94
sparkling water
wedge of lime to garnish​

Method:
Muddle the blackberries, lime and sugar in a tumbler. Partially fill the glass with crushed ice, add the Seedlip and popup wth sparkling water. Serve with a wedge of lime. 

Get out there and gather nature's bounty while you can. You don't have to use them straight away. You can always freeze them for use in crumbles later in the season, or preserve them as jam. I'm going to try to make ice-cream too after sampling my friend's home-made blackberry ice-cream yesterday. 

The 24th of June, Midsummer’s Day, is the perfect time to celebrate the elder tree. According to folklore you may encounter the fairy King and Queen and their retinue if you loiter by an elder on Midsummer’s Eve. The smell of its leaves is reputed to be mildly narcotic so I wonder if it was the inspiration for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which the young lovers and a travelling theatre troupe have a fairly trippy night in a forest along with Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the fairies. 

Last year I used a River Cottage recipe for my elderflower cordial with oranges and lemons in addition to the elderflower. This year I substituted the lemon and orange for lime and used this recipe from The Greedy Vegan. The lime cuts through the sweetness  of the elderflower with a little zing. You can look about online for lots of variations on the theme. Look at how many flower heads your recipe calls for before you go picking - last year I picked way too many for the amount of cordial I wanted to make. 

One of my fave ways of using elderflower cordial in the summer is in a mocktail. I've not drunk alcohol for over eight months now so I am always looking for new ideas for grown up drinks. Seedlip Garden is an alcohol free botanical a bit like gin. Its very herbal and pea in its aroma and pairs perfectly with fresh summer flavours like elderflower, lime and mint. Seedlip suggests garnishing the drink with frozen peas but I wasn't that keen when I tried that. I like to make a mocktail with a measure of Seedlip Garden, as splash of elderflower cordial, juice of half a lime, a sprig of mint, ice and plenty of tonic. If you've made the elderflower and lime cordial just use that rather than the separate cordial and lime juice.

I experimented with two different cake recipes here - essentially similar because both comprise a lemon sponge which is then infused with an elderflower and lemon syrup while cooling. One is finished simply with granulated sugar as a “drizzle cake” and the other is topped with a lemon buttercream icing enriched with cream cheese, so is a little more special, decadent and definitely more calorific. The full recipes are available from Belvoir and BBC Good Food respectively however I wanted to make my elderflower and lemon cakes in one pound loaf tins to give as gifts so I adjusted the recipes accordingly. The Belvoir drizzle cake recipe made two small loaves and the BBC Good Food celebration cake recipe made two small and one large (2lb) loaves. I've given the amount of ingredients for one 2lb drizzle loaf or two 1lb loaves at the end of the blog. 

I didn’t use exact timings, more kept an eye on them, put a piece of foil over the top if I felt they were colouring too much, and then used a skewer to see if they were done or still wet inside. The celebration cake mix was enriched with a bit of yoghurt which presumably enhances the sour taste of the lemon, but I don't think this is essential. It was delicious but I'm not sure the elderflower came through strongly enough for me to really notice it wasn't just a lemon cake. I really liked the crunch of the drizzle cake so that one won for me. ​

Thanks to our local forest school, Children of the Forest, for showing Mia how to make these and enthusing her enough that she wanted to show me as soon as she got home! They are so simple and finger-licking good. Easy enough to do over a camping stove or fire. 

We picked a few heads of elderflower and checked them over for bugs before dipping each into a simple batter mixture of flour, water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar mixed to the right consistency to cling onto the flowers. You could enrich the batter with an egg if you like. The coated flower heads were pan-fried on both sides in a little oil until golden brown then drained on kitchen paper. Sprinkle with sugar and eat. The stems make handy handles to stop your fingers getting too greasy. Eat the flowers along with the fritter to get all the lovely elderflower flavour but leave the toughest stalks. 

For more fascinating facts about elder trees visit Trees For Life.org.uk. I'm off to collect some elder leaves to hang around the back door to keep the flies away.

Enjoy your elder-flower foraging and happy Midsummer's Day to you.  

Cake quantities - for one 2lb loaf or 2 1lb loaves

• 225g/8oz butter, softened
• 225g/8oz caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 225g/8oz self-raising flour, sifted
• zest and juice 1 lemon
• 100ml/4fl oz Elderflower Cordial
• 30ml/2tbsp granulated sugar

Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat the eggs and gradually mix into the creamed butter and sugar along with a bit of flour. Add the remaining flour and the lemon zest and mix til smooth. Bake in greased and lined tins until firm to touch and a skewer comes out clean. Mix the lemon juice and elderflower cordial together. Prick the cakes all over with a cocktail stick while cooling and drench in the lemon and elderflower mixture. Sprinkle with granulated sugar to finish.

Henland is a bit of an enigma - local lore has it that a thousand years ago Alfred the Great gave the tithes of Henland over to the monks of Cullompton in payment for their prayers for the souls of men lost in battle against the Danes. Henland continued to be the responsibility of the Vicars of Cullompton after the reformation so any Henland occupants wishing to marry had to travel an additional three miles to Cullompton, rather than their nearest church at Kentisbeare, to have their banns read. Not much of a big deal now in the age of motor transport as we can whizz to Cullompton in under 15 minutes, but back when people walked or rode horses everywhere it would have been! (source: Under the Blackdowns by L C E Chalk).

Apparently Henland may be so-called because "in Saxon times wild birds frequented it".  Now it is frequented by hoards of not so wild Jemima Puddleducks, free to roam outside, and gorgeous little quail, free to fly in barns, busy laying eggs for West Country Produce Ltd. 

Asparagus and eggs have a natural affinity to one another (have you ever tried freshly cooked asparagus dipped in a runny boiled egg or with hollandaise sauce?) so it makes total sense for Liz and Marcus to grow both. Marcus supplied me with a dozen green and a dozen purple asparagus, freshly cut from the field that morning. I'd not seen purple before but Marcus assured me they are sweeter than green. I had planned to only buy duck eggs but Mia thought the little quail egg boxes were so adorable (they are) that we came away with half dozen of each.

Cooking is one of my passions, something I really enjoy when at home or away. It is my creative outlet, a comfort, an indulgence, a way of showing love to your loved ones, and a mindful practice that I find really enjoyable and relaxing. I adore inventing new dishes and often spend time thinking about what I'm going to make that evening as I go about my daily chores or when driving the children to and fro. So, what to do with these asparagus and eggs? 

I did a little googling for inspiration and found mainly starter suggestions, but I wanted to make a dish substantial enough for a main meal. The idea of a Nicoise salad popped into my head, but with some substitutions: asparagus instead of green beans, duck and quail eggs instead of hens' eggs, radishes instead of tomatoes, and skip the tuna as we are attempting to eat mainly vegetarian these days for the good of the environment (and also I think it would ruin a jolly good asparagus and duck egg salad!). Add another fabulous seasonal ingredient in the form of Jersey Royal new potatoes and you have the basis of a great meal.

How to make it: 

I had a Cos lettuce from my Riverford veg box in the fridge so I used that as my base but really you could use any lettuce you have to hand. I washed and chopped it and placed it on the plate. Topped with thinly sliced radishes and sliced Jersey Royals that had been boiled til tender. 

I snapped the cut ends off the asparagus spears (my sister-in-law showed me this - if you snap it rather than cutting it, it naturally snaps at the point where it becomes woody so you can discard the tougher ends and keep just the delicious tender spears). I decided to try the asparagus two ways, so cooked half in boiling water for barely four minutes. I chucked the quail's eggs in for the last 2 minutes 15 seconds to soft boil them then plunged them into iced water to stop them cooking. The asparagus were rested on kitchen paper after cooking.  

I laid the other half of the asparagus on an oven tray and drizzled over some olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper before grilling them under a hot grill until tender. (The purple asparagus retained their colour much better when grilled than when boiled.)

Alongside I made a crumb of seeded bread and hazelnuts by whizzing them together in a small food processor. This was placed on a baking tray and drizzled with olive oil before grilling for a few minutes alongside the asparagus. Watch it as it colours quickly! 

This aspect was inspired by this recipe from Cockles and Mussels. They poached then deep fried their duck eggs in a brioche and hazelnut crumb. I didn't do this for two reasons - firstly I thought the chance of me mucking up the eggs was much greater if putting them through this process and secondly, I don't really like deep-frying for the health aspect but also because it takes up so much oil! So I did a deconstructed version and sprinkled the crumb over the top of the salad at the end. I did however use their dressing recipe with melted butter, olive oil, walnut oil, lemon juice, chives and chopped hazelnuts, which was delicious. 

It only remained to poach the duck eggs. I used a pan of boiling water with a tablespoon of white balsamic vinegar but you could use white wine vinegar. Crack your eggs into a cup first as it is much easier to gently plop them into the water from there than from the shell. Get the water simmering, swirl the water into a whirlpool and slide in the eggs one at a time, quick as you can. Start your timer for 3 minutes and fish out the eggs in the order you put them in with a slotted spoon. Place them on a plate covered with kitchen paper to remove some of the moisture. I popped them into the still-warm oven (not on) to keep warm while I assembled the salad. I laid the boiled and grilled asparagus spears on top of the lettuce/potato/radish assembly, then balanced a poached duck egg on top. I carefully peeled the quails eggs and halved them before placing them on the salad too. The whole lot was sprinkled with the hazelnut crumb and then drizzled with the delicious dressing. Voila! Salade not Nicoise with a sophisticated twist...

I was really pleased with how this dish turned out. In particular that I didn't overcook the eggs. I liked both colours of asparagus (I'm not sure they tasted markedly different from one another) but preferred the grill cooking method as I think it concentrates the flavour and retains the colour better. You can do this with whatever asparagus and eggs you have to hand, but if you want to get a hold of Liz and Marcus' produce find out how to get there at the bottom of the page.

A super speedy quick supper with asparagus and duck eggs:

A couple of weeks ago I had some asparagus and duck eggs and was very short of time so wanted to make a quick supper. Luckily I had some leftover mashed potato in the fridge so I fried that up with some leeks to make little colcannon cakes, then simply topped each with a fried duck egg and asparagus spears. Delicious. 

How to get to West Country Produce at Lower Henland:

From Mortimer's Cross (where you will find both Halsbeer Farm and Blackdown Yurt's signs by the road) head south on the lane (sign to Pirzwell should be on your right and for Halsbeer Farm on your left) to the junction at Stowford Water. Go pretty much straight on, signed Orway, for just under a mile following the West Country Asparagus signs. Look out for a turning on your left with a stand selling asparagus and eggs at the side of the road. Turn left here. If you don't want to walk or drive all the way up to the farm, Liz and Marcus often put the slightly wonky spears down there so go up to the farm if you want dead straight asparagus! If walking you can take an off road route by walking partway up the road to Sainthill (second left at Stowford Water signed for the baptist church), then turn right along the track opposite the entrance to Hollis House. Carry on up there until you reach a lane, turn left and soon you will find Lower Henland farm on your right. There are numerous footpaths crossing the area, so pick up one of our maps before you go and you could find your way back via Blackborough perhaps. 

You may be lucky and find some eggs and asparagus in the post office in Kentisbeare. As well as supplying local shops and restaurants Liz and Marcus supply Waitrose so you may find their eggs in there.