WE will still have Court Farm cherries this Saturday, although there is a good chance it may be the last week of the season, a week’s weather like this one has the unfortunate (for growers) affect of bringing things to ripeness rather more quickly than they might like.

This applies especially to fruit and flower growers.

However, as the cherries come to an end the plum season begins and Days Cottage and Styan’s Produce had their first early season plums on their stalls last week.

Our collective efforts at the market to reduce the use of single use plastic is moving forward bit by bit with some examples of good practice on offer.

Obviously loose vegetables and fruit are one of the market’s features and Styan’s Produce display their tomatoes and other lines in plastic but empty them into a paper bag once sold, taking the punnet home for re-use.

Forest Mushrooms use the same method with their chestnut mushrooms.

Any products that are sold in the punnets at Styan’s are in pulp punnets made in Evesham.

These were also on view at Daisy’s Farm, the new tiny fruit farm that joined the market this year.

Carrier bags are still given out but these are all biodegradable. One of the trickiest things to replace are the plastic trays used in the meat displays. The Stowe Herd (second and fourth Saturdays) now use a lined paper bag for their sausages with the only down-side being you can’t actually see the product.