We've been looking for an organic veg option for a while, I don't get many crops from my garden during the winter, and the organic stall has disappeared from my local market. We've tried the
Morrisons organic veg box, but I think we've settled on Abel and Cole's weekly organic veg boxes for now.
This is what we got in our first few boxes,
Week 1.
We went for a medium mixed box to start with, this costs £19.95 but we had a super special offer for 50% off our 1st and 4th boxes, so we actually paid £9.98 plus the £1.25 for postage. This is a bigger box than we would go for usually, but we were cheekily making the most of the 50% off!
The box contains 3 fruits and 6 veggies, our box had,
5 big bananas, 6 apples and a box of red grapes. A paper bag with 9 potatoes of various shapes and sizes, a bag of 9 carrots, 4 white onions, 3 big vine tomatoes, 3 huge portobello mushrooms, a cauliflower.
Opening the box was like Christmas and all the produce was beautiful and fresh and exciting! Only two little niggles with the produce, one of the bananas was split and one of the potatoes had a green bit, but nothing that we were particularly bothered about. I don't like the plastic boxes the grapes, mushrooms and tomatoes came in either - surely they could use cardboard ones instead!
We got a free cookbook too.
Week 2.
We went for the small mixed box this time, which costs £14.25 gives you 3 fruits and 5 veggies, it contained,
4 big bananas, 5 apples, 6 clementines, 2 corn on the cobs, a red pepper, a punnet of mushrooms, a punnet of cherry tomatoes, a bunch of kale.
Although it wasn't as exciting to open the smaller box, I do think this amount of fruit and veg is more manageable for my two person household to eat in a week. Usually the box comes with potatoes, but I swapped them out for a pepper because we still had loads of potatoes left over from the Morrisons organic veg box. Again the produce was lovely and fresh and we were excited to eat it!
Week 3.
We had the small mixed box again, this time it contained,
4 bananas, 9 apples (a double portion of apples), a bag of 7 potatoes, a red pepper, 3 big leeks, 5 medium size chestnut mushrooms, a bag of corn salad.
Again, everything was nice and fresh, although I could have done with a few more potatoes in my bag!
Week 4.
Ok, I'll admit that we went too far with this one! To make the most of the 50% off the 4th box offer I bought the large mixed box, which is usually £27.50, but we only paid £13.75 plus postage.
Inside the (huge) box was,
6 bananas,7 apples, 7 mandarins, 4 baking potatoes, a bag of 10 potatoes of various sizes, 2 broccolis, a cauliflower, 5 tomatoes, 12 mushrooms, 4 corn on the cob and a bag of salad.
I guess the portion sizes are bigger in the bigger boxes as well as you getting a larger selection of items. Luckily, Abel and Cole boxes are really flexible, so I skipped the next week's box to give us enough time to eat all this veg.
I made a couple of extra purchases from the Abel and Cole shop too, some organic pumpkin seeds and garlic.
Overall, I've been super happy with the quality of the fruit and veg in the boxes, everything is fresh and it feels like a real treat to eat. I love the convenience of having it delivered too, I don't have to go to the market, or try to find organic in the supermarket. It's nice that the boxes are flexible too, you can skip weeks, and check the website to see what's in your box in advance -and swap out anything icky like parsnips or butternut squash! I wish there was less plastic packaging on some of the things, but I suppose there's less plastic than if I'd bought my veg pre-packaged from the supermarket.
If you fancy trying
Abel and Cole for yourself feel free to use the code below to get £20 off your first order (and I'll get £20 credit too!).
Can you recommend any other organic veg boxes for us to try?
