December brought a foot of rain and January the same again – double the average and about half what you’d expect in a whole year. Everything takes more time and effort with a few kilos of mud clinging to each boot, but despite the gloom (and the rain always finding a way into your waterproofs), spirits
are remarkably high in the fields; the crops are good, allowing faster picking. Selectively picking a poor crop in grim weather is what breaks the team.
A picker returning at dusk last week told me they knew it was time to go home when their boxers were sodden. Few people have the physical and mental resilience to cope – surely these are some of the most extreme conditions experienced in the modern workplace? Fortunately, humans come in many forms and some are able to master a zen-like calm combined with endurance and dexterity that enables them to survive, and occasionally even enjoy the harshest conditions. The polytunnels provide respite on the worst days. We have just finished picking the lettuce planted in September and are busy replanting “Salanova” lettuce for another harvest in April. We’ll then replant tomatoes… and around we go again.
The less vigorous salad crops such as beet greens are easily smothered by chickweed. This opportunist weed, prized by some as a superfood, can germinate, grow and flower at any time but seems to do particularly well in the cool, dim days of midwinter. Rather than spend hours on our hands and knees weeding prior to harvest, we have perfected a technique of sandwiching our seeds between two sheets of paper (a machine does this) which are then rolled out over a super-flat seedbed. As the seeds germinate and grow, the crop leaves are able to burst through the top sheet of paper and the roots through the bottom sheet. When we get it right, the chickweed is trapped in the dark beneath the paper, where it perishes.
With dusk drawing out, snowdrops in the hedges, a few forward daffodils, and the occasional confused primrose, there is a sense that the worst is over. On the rare occasions when the sun breaks through, you can just about feel the warmth on your cheek. I can’t do a full day in the field anymore but as one of the outliers who’d rather feel a trickle down my neck than sit through another meeting, my sanity and perspective depends on feeling the mud and being buffeted by a gale.
Photograph 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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