This rather cryptic title represents a modern thinking of self-sustainability. With the phrase referring more specifically to food, PYO or pick your own places are actually relatively common. One of the PYO places my family and I like to go to is called 'Durleighmarsh Farm' situated just north of Petersfield nr. Midhurst off of the A3. For more details you can go to their website or directly visit them. The website and address are below:
Durleighmarsh Farm, Rogate Rd, Petersfield, Hants, GU31 5AX
The positive reasoning for going to these places are abundant and rarely have a downside associated. Walking through a normal journey after arriving, there is a shop in which you walk through to get to vast fields of crops. This shop is filled with various seasonal crops from themselves and other producers within the county. Walking through the side door, you find a large pile of complimentary punnets to be able to place your picked fruit and vegetables in. Adjacent is a large board with the up-to-date availability and cost of each of the produce per kg. Next to this is also a pictured map with the various parts clearly labelled. Then, and simply put, you go and pick your own! Such Fun!
After you have picked the desired amount of foods or flowers, you take them into the very same shop you entered at the start. There, you can pick up anything you didn't find or some local farm shop treats such as meats and local churned ice cream. In my humble opinion as someone that cooks and bakes ALOT, the taste you get from something so fresh can really make a difference to the final flavour in any dish. Without any treatments added and most used the same day after being pulled from the ground, the produce has barely anytime to lose its flavour after being taken from its own food source. I can fathom this enough, it really does reflect in the taste in comparison to supermarket foods.
The last part is paying! As previously mentioned, the produce is measured in kg or per stem in flower. This is done in the punnets provided as the weight of the thin plastic carriers are pretty much nothing in terms of an already very reasonable cost. After, and we have done this to cut down on waste, you can pour from the punnets into your own plastic re-usable boxes/containers. For instance, on the day of writing, we did this with no problem and issue at all. We then placed the punnets back in the shop for future customers to use! The children were very thankful as we passed them empty boxes to use whilst learning about where to the food comes from and finding their own gems.
Completing our couple of hours, we then ventured outside towards another local business, Johnson's Enterprises who can be found there every Saturday. A seller of fresh fish and seafood, the PYO really does become a one stop shop for a fresh, reasonably priced but most importantly, delicious meal! The quality of the meat is evident with the cleanest of filleting made on site whilst also serving. After arriving, we had found a rather large queue had formed around the corner, such being the popularity of the purveyor. We personally purchased some mouth watering tuna steaks to enjoy the same evening. We got these at a fantastic price too! For more info on how to get to or info on Johnson's Enterprises, simply search their name on social media or visit the website below.
*Please note that I haven't received any discount or freebies for this glowing endorsement, I genuinely believe in the quality of the produce and supporting local businesses!*
Comments