GO BEYOND FOUR SEASONS

EARLY

PASSIONFRUIT
Seville, Spain
Jul - Sep

Passion Fruit has an unusual seasonality, with two short harvest windows each year: first from December to March, and again from July to August.

Here in London, we’ve just received the first fruits of the summer season, grown by Amadora in Seville. She describes these Passionfruit as having “an aroma that transports you”. These are worlds apart from the underripe, overly acidic imports you might be used to. Rather than being picked early for transport, Amadora lets the fruit fall naturally from the vine, a sign that they’ve reached peak ripeness, aligning with her philosophy that “living alongside nature means living according to its vicissitudes”.

Each shell is packed with intensely sweet pulp, bursting with seeds and that unmistakable tropical fragrance. Wrinkled by the heat of the Seville sun, this is passion fruit as it should be: rich, ripe, and full of flavour.

Amadora runs a fourth generation organic farm alongside her husband and children. Together, they cultivate a variety of citrus and tropical fruits, with up to 10 varieties of Clementines, as well as Kumquats, Limequats and Yuzu.

These Passion Fruit grow in unheated greenhouses, directly in the soil and trained along trellises. She runs nets under the vines to catch the fruits as they fall before gathering them. Amadora’s fruits are dark purple and smooth and can be with us just two days from the vine.

LATE

WALNUTS - GREEN
Dorset, England
Jul - Aug

On their sheep farm in Dorset, Patricia and Fiona are picking the last of their Green Walnuts. Their one-week harvesting process is brief and intense, capturing the nuts at the precise moment they form.

“How do we know they’re ready? We take a penknife and slice through a nut, if there is no resistance, the Walnut is not ‘shelled’ and is good for picking,” shares Patricia. She explains the Walnuts are tested daily once the little tail left by the flower disappears as the nuts swell and grow in size.

“They are a hugely versatile nut,” she adds, “from sweet preserves such as Glyko Karydaki to traditional pickles… delicious.”

Of all the seasonal tasks, she describes walnut picking as among the most pleasurable: shaded, scented, and unhurried.

Picking is done entirely by hand, using shepherds’ crooks to pull the boughs low enough to reach the walnuts on the branches. There’s often a queue of sheep nearby, waiting in hope that a few leaves might fall, walnut leaves being something of a delicacy to them.

Cotton gloves are worn when picking green walnuts, as the juice inside the husks stains skin a deep, rich brown. Harmless, but persistent.

The trees themselves give off a subtle, fragrant scent: cool, green and unmistakable.