Mick Kelly

People think, well, a hungry gap would be in the winter, but it's actually a late spring problem.

So April and May, these two months are the most, you know, acute shortages of local produce in Ireland.

And I get a lot of people saying to me, you know, I went into a supermarket yesterday and there's no Irish carrots.

And that's predominantly some of it's because our carrot growers are going out of business.

But some of it is also that

you know, the carrots are out of season.

There's none of last year's carrots left.

And it's really important to kind of remember that with potatoes, for example, the potatoes we're eating now, the carapinks and roosters and so on, are last year's potato crop that's been stored in cold storage over the winter.

And that's why the new potatoes, which, you know, start to appear on the sides of the road in Wexford and other places now,

in about, you know, maybe two, three weeks time were such a cause for celebration traditionally because they were new season potatoes and they taste absolutely amazing.

The storage ones, you know, are losing their flavor over the winter and so on.

So I think the points of celebration during the year, the first new potatoes, first apples, the first tomatoes, you know, they're real,

The real points of celebration only if they are seasonal and seasonality implies there has to be a lack of seasons, you know, at the other end of the scale.

But I think it's a much more, I think a much more interesting way to eat.

It's a much more celebratory way to eat and much more varied diet as well.

And definitely the science tells us it's more nutrient dense and less carbon emission.

If we are in this sort of weird season at the moment where, you know, we're waiting for things to come in, what should we be eating right now then that is seasonal?

Yeah, it's a great question.

And actually, in fairness, Board B have a very good guide on the website that will tell you what's in season in Ireland.

And it's a very narrow range at the moment.