It never fails to amaze me when our allotment produces vegetables for us to take home and eat. Perhaps it's because the entire process of planting a teensy, tiny seed, watering it, watching the growth so slowly, then quickly until fruition is so astonishingly miraculous that it almost defies belief. How can it be so possible, on such a scale, with tangible results? Maybe it's because I cannot fully accept that I am capable of taking enough care of anything for it to flourish, or more to do with our rather dusty and stony looking allotment lot. Either way, the miracles keep on coming.We have plenty to look forward to this year: onions, shallots and garlic are doing well so far (and look pretty at sunset).




Last year was our best to date with home grown produce, it turned out to be a long season of fresh pickings. It's great to eat much of it as soon as possible, maybe only being picked within a couple of hours, but it's not always possible for whatever reason and more needs to be stored than eaten. Especially soft fruit like strawberries and raspberries, it's a case of pick it or lose it. I'll be honest,saying that we have more produce go to waste than I would wish and it frustrates me.
Things change.
I've discovered a nifty new idea to massively cut down on fresh produce waste at home which is an absolute winner. Hello Fresh Pod my new secret to keeping food fresh. All I have to do is pop this sachet in it's little cage and keep it in the fridge near my fruit and vegetables to ensure that everything stays good for longer. The cage is about the size of a credit card and slim, so it's not taking up much space at all.
How does Fresh Pod work? Well, fruit and veg give off ethylene gas as they ripen (and flowers give it off too, come to that) which encourages everything around them to ripen, thus giving off more gas and so forth. Inside the sachet are zeolite pellets which absorb ethylene and covert it into some lovely plant food - the whole thing is organically approved, perfectly safe and non-toxic. Fresh food can last up to four times longer! I've been trying it out for myself and have been really pleased with how much longer the vegetables have lasted. Unfortunately it's almost exclusively shop bought veg in my fridge at the moment - take things out of the plastic wrappers or best results. It's great to cut waste right down; in future I aim to eliminate it altogether!  A saving to the purse as well as the conscience.
An initial kit (£12.99) lasts 12 months and contains two pods and four sachets. As each sachet lasts 6 months this means you can keep one in your fridge and one in your fruit bowl too - pesky bananas trying to ripen everything else too fast! Refill packs (£7.95) last 12 months and contain 4 sachets to be used in the two pods you received in the initial kit. Once each sachet is finished with the contents can be used as plant fertilizer which is a cute and green little lifecycle. As well as household use Fresh Pod is available on a commercial scale too.
If you want to get yourself a 10% discount then use my special discount code and head over to Fresh Pod and enter SOPHIE10 when prompted. I must add that Fresh Pod are a Norfolk based brand and I'm thrilled to know that this innovative and waste saving product comes from my own patch. Great news!

Big thanks to Fresh Pod for coming up with such a simple yet clever product, review is all mu own content and opinions as always.
Sophie