Welcome Savouring

fresh-picked food outdoors in our own gardens is both a pleasure and a reward – and July is a month of plenty. With four out of five of you telling us you’re growing your own food this year, it’s a pleasure that’s in easy reach.

To help you make the most of all you’ve grown, we’ve dozens of fresh ways to use your produce to share over the next three issues – starting with tips from the best-selling author of the delicious Roasting Tin series, Rukmini Iyer, on harvesting and preparing this month’s bounty. Getting every bit of goodness and flavour from our homegrown is more than just enjoyable. New research into our immune systems suggests that those working with soil and eating fresh food close to its source are boosting their gut health and natural resilience (as Monty and I discussed in our recent podcast on organic gardening). It seems to be revealing the benefits of what my granny’s generation instinctively understood: that to ‘eat a peck of dirt’ while enjoying your food is part of the natural way to a healthier life. For me, the best harvests have always been stolen ones – that sun-warmed strawberry, tomato or peppery leaf, picked and popped, unwashed, straight into my mouth: no air miles, no chemicals, pure flavour.

Good food needn’t cost the earth when it’s raised with love in our own back gardens. So feel good about nibbling as you harvest (encouraging kids and grandkids to do the same) and enjoy turning even modest homegrown pickings into flavoursome feasts. You’re living the good life – and that’s something we all deserve.