Northdown Orchard

Some of my parenting “shortcuts”!

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Food, Organising

If you’ve been following NorthHantsMum for a while you will know that I’m big on keeping my life as stress free and simple as possible.

One of the ways I do this is by getting things delivered directly to our house.

I work from home so this is fairly straight forward, however, there are ways to get around this if you aren’t at home very much.

I’ve mentioned before that I use online shopping but I also have food delivered by local producers and independent companies.

1. Food Delivery – Fish

We have a fish delivery every 8 weeks. We use Regal Fish. They deliver the fish that was caught that morning.

We get a call from Regal Fish, place our order and they make the delivery a week later.

The quality of the fish has been excellent and we are eating a lot more fish as a result.

2. Food Delivery – Organic Vegetables

I have a bag of fresh, locally grown, organic vegetables delivered every week.

I’ve wrote a review about NorthDown Orchard when we first started using them. I was looking for a local alternative to Able and Cole and Riverford.

Two years later and we are still getting our weekly bags.

I love them! I love that we are using a local producer and it’s all organic and incredibly reasonably priced for organic vegetables.

3. Birthday Present Box

There is nothing worse (first world issues!) than realising that you have a children’s party the following day and you’ve not got a present sorted.

I sort of cheat with this.

I’ve set up a number of alerts in camelcamelcamel for gifts which I know children will like and then when they are reduced in price, I buy them in bulk and store them in the Birthday Present Box.

This has saved my skin (and wallet) on a number of occasions.

What are your parenting “shortcuts”?

Review 2013: NorthDown Orchard Deliveries

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Food, Reviews of Places to Eat 0 Comment

Northdown Orchard

I found out about Northdown Orchard when I was doing my research on the Pick Your Own post which was published in April (gosh, I thought it was published in June! How time flies, lol)

I’ve mentioned before on NHM that I have had an organic delivery box (Weaning Ideas) since my little one started weaning. The box deliveries take the pressure off me to provide nutritional, organic produce as I knew we would be getting a box each week, which had a variety of organic fruit and veg in, for a very reasonable price.

However, when I found out that the local NorthDown Orchard delivered boxes to most areas in Basingstoke, I thought I would try it out. It helped that Fumbilina (a long time NHM reader and supporter) got her box organised before me and had good things to say about it!

So, I started my deliveries in June and I’ve been really impressed. As there are only three of us, we have the bag which is:

  • Bag – £7.70 (usually 6-7 items, typically 1kg potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage or broccoli or cauliflower, salad leaves or lettuce, other items e.g. tomatoes and cucumber in summer; leeks, swede or parsnips in winter)

This is more than enough for the week for us. With anything that is left over, it goes straight into a vegetable soup which I make in the slow cooker. Just throw it all in with some water and herbs and hey presto!

I’ve requested not to have potatoes because I’m trying to stick to a mainly paleo diet and Mike was very happy to accommodate this.

The deliveries are on Tuesday afternoon and evening, so Tuesday evening is now my “vegetable preparing” evening. I’ve asked Mike, the delivery man (who is also the main man! lol) to knock when he drops the delivery off, so I can get the vegetables straight into the fridge to preserve their life.

I also like that Mike will pick up the plastic bags and paper bags that the vegetables are delivered in, so they can be recycled.

It’s really nice to get some proper local food and I love the variety of what we get. Some weeks we have herbs in our parcel and this week we had some hot peppers! Yes, it can be a challenge to cook seasonally, but I find, once you get into it, it becomes second nature. Plus, I like knowing where my vegetables come from!

NorthDown Orchard also organise many events at the orchard which are suitable for little people. We haven’t gone along to any yet, but they are on my list of things to do for October.

For more details check the Facebook page HERE or click on the website at the top of this post.

One of the key concepts behind NHM is supporting local small businesses, so I’m delighted to recommend Northdown Orchard!

Let me know if you decide to get a box from the Orchard.