Packed to the rafters

The hilbarn van Versace was packed to the rafters this week on Barn's home deliveries to Launceston - even the front seat was full. Sadly we can't do every delivery run ourselves which means we have to close the boxes for safe delivery. In this week's box: Graeme's lettuce and mint; silverbeet, baby spinach and coriander from Zong in Tea Tree; dutch cream potatoes and shallots from Scottsdale; apples and the last of the autumn raspberries from Hillwood and cauliflower and Savoy cabbage from Laurie in Lower Barrington. Next week: enjoy the last of Lyndy and David's certified organic garlic - it's proved a real hit this season. 

Ready to Jonquil

These jonquils could either be way too early or extremely late! We spotted them last Monday morning in the Windermere Cafe & Cellar Door garden, one of our Pick Up Points for East Tamar hilbarn customers. If you've never dropped in, make sure you do. It's a home away from home and owners Kerrie and Maree are always on the spot ready to put a spring in your step with great coffee, freshly made sandwiches, hot meals or a bottle of local Native Point sparkling wine. You can also arrange to have your hilbarn fresh produce box delivered there for free on Mondays and Thursdays - or choose one of our other Pick Up Points (listed at right) convenient to you. Might see you at the Windermere Cafe for happy hour one of these Fridays... 

New Delivery Days

That's Barn, taking a call from a customer to hold their boxes for a couple of weeks - they're off to Bali. What good timing, just as the southerly blows in! Barn and Versace are off now to deliver boxes for hilbarn's additional delivery days on Thursdays in Launceston and Fridays in Hobart. Enough of you had mentioned how you'd love a box for the weekend. So now you can start your week, or start the weekend, filling your fridge and pantry with local fresh produce. Just send us an email if you'd like to sign up to either end of the week (or both) to hilbarn@bigpond.com. And that's Harry the hilbarn dog who would have waved too if he could, as Versace headed out onto Pipers River Road for the short trip into town...Enjoy your day!

PS. We tried the Thursday and Friday delivery days but in the end interest wasn't great enough to make it worth our while. If it ever is, we'll certainly make it happen again.

Truffles Are Coming

It's been three years since we started hilbarn fresh produce boxes and we wanted to say thank you for helping to spread the word through reading our blog. We know that many of our customers who've been with us for a long time really enjoy opening up "the surprise in a box" with each weekly or fortnightly delivery. And we love introducing them to the amazing diversity of the fresh produce we source from our Tasmanian growers, and to their stories. This month, Hil's story on Tamar Valley Truffles featured in Country Style's May edition with photographs by Tasmanian photographer Alan Moyle. We snapped the one of grower Marcus Jessup (photographed) during last year's truffle hunt where we learned that Tamar Valley Truffles are highly prized both in Australia and internationally. If you'd like to be truly adventurous and try this year's local truffle harvest, here's your chance. We are offering fresh Tamar Valley Truffles as optional extras in hilbarn boxes from mid June. That's when Marcus expects the season will start. If you're a hilbarn customer, let us know if you're interested and we'll send you more details.

Road Trips

It's no hardship travelling around the Tasmanian countryside picking up produce direct from the growers we meet for our hilbarn fresh produce boxes. And particularly when you turn a corner and see a scene like this: taken from the middle of a bridge over the South Esk River, on a phone camera, along the Nile Road south of Evandale.

Kitchen gardens (#1)

Thank you to Rod and Kim at Stillwater for inviting us to raid their restaurant kitchen garden last week featuring an amazing abundance of chillies. Here are Kim (top) and Rod's hands (sorry Rod, you were moving so fast our quick phone-snap was out of focus...), harvesting hatfuls of habaneros for last week's hilbarn boxes. We put one in every hilbarn box and had handfuls left over which Hil thought she'd use to make chilli oil. Question: how many habanero chillies to one bottle of peanut/olive oil?