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For years we agonised over whether the benefits of tunnels (earliness, quality and cropping reliability) justified the eyesore. Last year we took the plunge and covered three acres of our best land with polytunnels, doubling our area of protected cropping. Despite the lack of sunshine, these three acres have been the most prosperous on the farm this year, providing good harvests of winter salads, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and peppers.
Pesticides have made farmers’ lives easier and have helped produce cheap food but their long history suggests they are seldom as ‘safe’ as initially claimed. Their incredible potency is normally achieved by disrupting cellular processes that are often shared well beyond their target species. Only a tiny proportion of pesticide reaches the target and only the most foolhardy chemical enthusiast would be surprised when they produce unintended consequences in the wider environment.
On and on it goes; the river is spilling out of its banks, springs are rising from unexpected places and once again the ground is sodden. We enjoyed a brief respite in the middle of November and managed to harvest some carrots. Conditions were borderline and they came out of the ground well caked – it will take a lot of work to get them clean enough to sell or store. A certain amount of soil helps the carrots to store, too much wet soil can deprive the roots of the oxygen they need to stay alive. Even a dormant root needs to breathe while sleeping the winter away.
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.
Back in the 1990s, when I was still striving to appease supermarket buyers, I was appalled by the waste that inevitably resulted from pursuing their fickle favour.
Issue 12: Fairness and five years.
Find out more about Wicked Leeks and our publisher, organic veg box company Riverford.