Veg boxes

Weekly veg box schemes are are pretty well-established thing now.  I've never signed up because as a single person, I never got through fresh veg: it was better to use frozen or buy little and often so that it wouldn't go off and end up in the bin.  The schemes that I've looked at until now have been far too big: the smallest boxes still contain more than I would ever get through, and cost more than I would want to spend on veg in a week.  However, I am no longer single (and haven't been for over a while now).

Kelly's Vegies put a leaflet through our door this week, offering a free trial for £1.  Check out the website (but turn your speakers down - there's an annoying animation with sound) - the £1 trial is available for anyone in their delivery area.

For £1 it would have been daft not to give it a try, and I was impressed with the services available - you can add potatoes, milk, eggs and a range of prepared soups and pies to your order.

The free trial arrived today - delivered overnight, as promised, and sitting on the doorstep before my girlfriend went to work this morning - and so here's what you get in your mid-size box, normally costing £12: a broccoli, a romanesco cauliflower, four courgettes, a butternut squash, a bag of baby carrots, a box of kiwi fruit and a generous bunch of bananas.

It's all in really good nick, lovely and fresh, but I'm not convinced it's good value: I'm willing to be proved wrong, but I'm pretty sure I could buy this at a supermarket or greengrocer for less.

It's clearly too much for us, but we have promised that we'll eat more veg.  I've switched us to the smaller £6 box, so we'll see how that goes.  I am quite excited by the thought of opening the box to find out what I've got to work with and then having to come up with recipes.  This could be the start of something fun!