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We have started cutting pak choi, basil, salad onions and salad leaves, with lettuce, spinach and chard still a week away. In most years we would now be emerging from the Hungry Gap, but with planting delayed by a wet spring, the pack house remains depressingly heavy on imports; some from our French farm, but more from our Spanish growers, and some from further afield.
On his small two-acre farm in southern Uganda, Charles grows bananas, papaya, coffee, pineapples and a range of vegetables, as well as fodder for his two beloved cows. He worked at Riverford as part of his training in sustainable agriculture – and during my return visit to his farm, he described how he made his own insecticide treatment with homegrown tobacco, ash and soap. Despite being plant-based and homemade, this treatment was regarded as a last resort and a failure of his management on the rare occasions he used it.
The soil is still a little drier than ideal for some crops, but as the dews get heavier, the sun lower and the days shorter, most crops are growing well.
In 1986, realising I was unemployable, I returned to the farm to start my own business - hopefully without the need to sell.
This week, I woke to find the lightest of ground frosts rolling off my southfacing pumpkin and squash field and settling in the sheltered valley meadow below.
Issue 12: Fairness and five years.
Find out more about Wicked Leeks and our publisher, organic veg box company Riverford.