The triumphs and challenges of this summer so far

‘It’s been a brutal time for the brassicas these last few weeks but, against the odds, they’ve survived!’ 

Farmers are often accused of moaning about the weather…but I think we can agree, that this early summer has left us all a bit frazzled. The heatwave was intense and George didn’t know how the crops would fare: ‘I like hot weather but that was something else! The issue we have here is lack of field scale irrigation. We can only water small areas at a time with drip tapes that we move manually around the field. It’s impossible to water everything and we just have to hope for the best.’ In fact, most of the veg seem to have bounced back and despite the lack of rain, this year is still (so far) looking good: ‘the chard and leaves were limp after the intense heat but they recovered. The beetroot harvest has been great, potatoes are good, parsnips are looking promising and the market garden crops have all been productive.’ 

Until this prolonged dry spell, rain has come at the right time and the Spring wasn’t too cold or wet so George had a chance to get on top of the planting and weeding while the weather played ball. That preparation is paying off and while the lack of rain is tricky, it’s still manageable (just). Of course, you can’t please every veg and when you grow over 300 different varieties, there will always been some that don’t thrive. This year, that’s the onions and early carrots: ‘they are too dry. The parsnips have a long root tap to source water from deep in the ground, the carrots don’t have quite that advantage and they are a bit skinny at the moment.’ An important crop, George is considering watering the carrots to help them along a bit whereas in general, the veg on the farm are left to find their own moisture - encouraging deep roots and a greater chance of survival in drought conditions or during a record breaking heatwave! 

The hot weather was actually a good time to get on top of the weeding in the market garden. A job mostly carried out by hand at this time of year, it’s very easy to kill weeds when the sun is out - just pull them up and leave them to die on the surface: ‘even a slight soil distubance will help dry them out’. Conversely, the newly planted brassicas were left ‘weedy’ to try and conserve water. As George explains: ‘ground cover is a good way to keep moisture in and I’ve also been reluctant to remove the nets as they also trap much needed water’. As a result, a peek under the nets show there’s a lot of catch up work to do here but hopefully, these tactics have helped the crops survive. 

As far as the future goes, this heatwave has given George pause for thought: ‘a week of that heat and we would be in trouble. It’s an eventuality we are going to have to start preparing for: the polytunnels will need proper fans to encourage air flow, the market garden will need shade netting and sooner or later, we will have to address the irrigation issue….but that’s expensive.’ Water security is a very real problem here on the farm and just being able to keep crops alive is not something we can take for granted in the future: ‘We grow our own resiliance here at Sandy Lane with a wide variety of veg. Each year something will fail, there will always be compromises but with a diversity of produce, there will also always be sucesses. However, a lack of water hits across the board.’ 

For now, we’ll enjoy the sweetcorn that has arrived three weeks earlier than last year and the wealth of ripe cherry tomatoes that, due to the efforts of the team, didn’t cook in their polytunnels! Farming is far from predictable: ‘If we had this year’s weather every year then you would know where you stand’. As it is, George will work with what he has - continue to build the soil structure and encourage organic matter under ground and try to ensure that whatever rain we have, goes straight to the crops that need it most.