Opinion - Page 100 - Wicked Leeks

Food, Farming, Fairness.

Opinion

Guy's news: surfing & cauliflowers

We opened the large tunnels fully last week and just let the gale blow through. No flimsy polythene was going to stop that wind. The tunnels survived and the winter salads looked a little windswept but none the worse for the experience. A smaller tunnel was shredded but we are counting ourselves lucky.

News from the farm

Opinion

Guy's news: planning, prices, promises and prizes

News from the farm

Opinion

Guy's news: digging & sowing

News from the farm

Opinion

Guy's news: An incredible species

As I write, the sun is out, the pressure is building and there is a faint hope of some settled weather. Already the days are starting to draw out and there is a sense of renewal. I can almost hear the earthworms gasp as some air gets back into the soil. Surely this will be a better year. One confused primrose in bloom is enough to fill me with optimism. The run up to Christmas is always insanely busy and overwhelmingly focused on survival. No-one wants to talk to me or listen to my latest idea so I am obliged to stand back, watch and marvel; we really are good at what we do.

News from the farm

Opinion

Guy's news: La terre est engorgée

This is coming from France where the soil is ‘full to the throat’ and has been since June – it has almost been as wet as in Devon. In response we have our brand new, two acre, large football pitch sized tunnel which is already planted with 40,000 lettuces plus chard, spinach and pak choi. All should be in your boxes in March, two months ahead of the UK season, helping to fill our ‘hungry gap’ and to give you relief from parsnips and swedes. After less than a week the roots are reaching out into the soil and the leaves are putting on new growth.

Opinion

Guy's news: Tomatoes – apologies, explanations & excuses

About five years ago we took the decision not to sell crops grown under heated glass. Burning fossil fuels to maintain a temperature of 20°C inside a single glazed greenhouse in the depths of winter is environmental insanity. According to our work with Exeter University, even after accounting for transport, it is ten to twenty times less damaging to import peppers and tomatoes from Spain, where heat is not required.

Opinion

Guy's news: Fifteen years on – GM revisited & golden rice

15 years ago I took the government to the High Court in London to challenge the legality of some GM maize trials bordering our farm in Devon. Encouraged by my father and a group of Totnes radicals, I read a stack of scientific papers and felt sufficiently concerned to accept support from Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association and hire a lawyer. We lost in court but won in the papers, which turned out to be more important.