The 2020 Quince Harvest.

The 2020 harvest (late March/April/May) was called Quince Kindness. With everything going on in the world, Michael, Lil and I decided to give away as many quinces as we could and only sell to existing customers in the hospitality industry who buy our quinces and turn them into a product they then sell; we sold the quinces for the initial price we started selling the quinces for 5 years ago. It was an honesty system, we harvested the quinces following hygiene procedures, put them directly in the box and the person buying the quinces weighed them when they got home (to save us handling them again and it minimises contact) and paid online. There were boxes of quinces left outside our garden gate and a wave from afar as they were collected. I like this type of  honesty system. If a customer weighed 15kg of quinces, we ask them to pay for 14kg, this is about generosity, good will – we want our customers to enjoy the whole process from buying our quinces to them making and selling or serving them.

Towards the end of the Quince harvest, we did a stocktake. We had given away over 150kg of quinces. We gave quinces to dog walkers who we see regularly walking past our cottage, to friends who have then made quince paste for their grandchildren, Michael gave them to customers, we’ve hung bags of quinces on our front fence to be collected by neighbours, as a thank you we left a big bag of quinces under a tree to be collected by someone who made a special trip to deliver something for us, Michael dropped boxes of quinces at friend’s farm gates as a surprise as he drove through the valley to work, and we have left bags of windfall quinces at a friends farm gate who fed them to their pigs.

When people we gave the quinces to offered to pay for them the reply was simple:
Pay it forward. Do something kind for someone else.
Even if it is just smiling at a stranger in the supermarket, gentle acts of kindness help make the world a better place.
Our Quince Orchard is more than just about selling fruit.

 

 

Quinces are available for sale during the harvesting season of March through to late April.

We deliberately hand pick what is actually ripe during those weeks instead of marking the calendar & picking everything at once that may not be quite ready.

It is such a slow process growing this fruit from seeing it bud & flower right through to the fruit setting & ripening, we are mindful not to rush the final stages.

We are generous when weighing quinces for orders.

To be in touch:

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Until next time, love from the garden.

Jude x