Some fine hay has been made and most crops and pickers are showing surprising resilience but as the heat rises each day it is hard to avoid a sense of impending doom. After three inches of rain in early June we were confident we had enough water to see us through to the autumn rains and shorter days, but this is no normal summer – with persistent dry easterly winds, three months of temperatures around 3°C above average, and near continual sunshine, our complacency has evaporated, along with the water in our winter-filled reservoirs. Come early August, we will likely have to make hard decisions about which crops to save and which to abandon.
Hope may come in the installation of a new, brook-fed reservoir but due to complex planning and permissions, this is still some years off. For now we’re experimenting with moisture probes in the ground which record and transmit soil moisture data to guide irrigation decisions. As an ageing technophobe I cling to the belief that the crop will tell an experienced eye what it needs in terms of water and nutrition – a walk around the farm at the end of a hot, windy day shows loss of leaf turgidity where water is needed – but the tunnel team find the probes useful and it seems we should be watering earlier. 87% of UK farmers have recorded drops in productivity due to extreme weather; we need all the help we can get adapting to climate change and to use every litre of water to best effect.
Silver Y moths from southern Europe have also chosen our lettuce to lay their eggs in. Moth invasions are not unusual but we’ve never known them in such numbers; after losing a couple of crops to the larvae we have resorted to covering all lettuce with a fine net which, thankfully, seems to be working. Most other crops are faring well in the heat with the sun-loving sweetcorn, squash, courgettes, and beans growing almost frighteningly fast. It is regularly getting to 38°C in the tunnels even with every door and vent open, and heat stress alongside declining bee activity (they struggle above 30°C) is causing some of the runner beans and cucumbers to abort fruit. Picker morale is holding up provided we finish by 1pm and supply enough ice-cream and chilled pop, but the days of cooling dips in a brimming reservoir after work are long behind us. Now all we need is rain.
Summer picking at Baddaford; photo by Emma Stoner
Our News from the Farm posts come from Riverford. They are the digital versions of the printed letters which go out to customers, every week via Riverford’s veg boxes. Guy Singh-Watson’s weekly newsletters connect people to the farm with refreshingly honest accounts of the trials and tribulations of producing organic food, and the occasional rant about farming, ethical, and business issues he feels strongly about.
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