Many people regard the swathes of plastic sheeting covering the Kentish countryside around Maidstone as an eyesore. Many others, however, may not particularly care, while others still may not even notice them anymore. The tunnels have, after all, been a part of our landscape for a number of years.
The tunnels, love ‘em or hate ‘em, do a remarkable job for growers of soft fruit. Rainfall (what’s that?) is very damaging to the fruit and can also spread disease. In addition polytunnels have the added advantage of not only keeping farm labourers dry when they are picking the fruit but also more productive as they don’t have to run for cover in a sudden rainstorm (that word again!). Wind is also a problem for strawberry farmers and the like as it can harm the fruit and even blow it away! Insects too are grateful for the shelter as they can buzz around merrily in the protected environment collecting pollen without a care in their warm plastic world.
And what would Wimbledon be without the traditional Kentish strawberries served during this great English tennis tournament? Although it is rumoured that due to the exceptionally warm and dry weather conditions in April our strawberry crop may have peaked too soon – know the feeling! So here’s the thing, maybe polytunnels are not needed after all. During a spring such as we’ve just experienced the fruit can grow on its own without the help of plastic – not the credit card variety although that probably helps too! –and come to fruition in its own good time, preferably just before Wimbledon! In fact protecting other young food plants with polythene doesn’t always help that much. In dry weather they need water from the ground and if there isn’t any rain (haven’t you looked it up yet?) being absorbed into the earth no amount of protective covering is going to help them.
Then again we don’t always get fabulously warm and dry springs, well hardly ever, and this year’s weather conditions are so far proving to be disastrous for vegetable and wheat crops that don’t want plastic protection just lots and lots and lots of rain (OK it’s that wet stuff that used to fall from the sky with stunning regularity!)
The bottom line seems to be that polytunnels are good for fruit farmers as it enables them to get a head start with growing their produce and thus allows them to compete with similar goods coming into the country from abroad. We can, it’s true, have strawberries whenever we want nowadays but there’s nothing quite like a Kentish strawberry grown somewhere near Maidstone at the (increasingly early) start of the strawberry season.
There are those, Gordon Ramsey among them, who champion fresh produce when it’s in season by which he means British seasons. In other words don’t eat a raspberry in December or a brussel sprout in July (or possibly ever!), but the point is that we should enjoy fruit and vegetables at the time of year when they would have traditionally been available in Britain. Climate change and polytunnels have changed all this, but before these were even thought of refrigeration and the jet engine were already conspiring to turn global fruit and vegetable farming into one gigantic polyglobe!
Until next time
India J