Thoughts from a southern road trip
I have been known to moan about the challenges of growing vegetables in Devon; the rain, the grey skies, the small, steep fields and shallow soils. But three weeks of visiting our suppliers in France...
View ArticleDarling, I really think we’re getting there
Many a grower (and a few gardeners) have lamented the exuberant ambitions that are born in winter, and exposed as folly in July. In the cold days of winter, with little growing, little immediately...
View ArticleGentle rain, nuts, and referring a friend
The past week’s 35mm of rain has been mercifully gentle. It has all been sucked down by our parched soil, although, on drier fields, it will take as much again to join up with the moisture held at...
View ArticleTechnology, uniformity and salad
In my youth, I harvested salad crops by hand, with a knife. We could cut around the weeds and cope with a variable crop, harvesting around 20kg per hour. Over 35 years, the price of vegetables has...
View ArticleRiverford completes sale of shares from Guy Singh-Watson
Organic veg box company Riverford has become 100 per cent employee owned after buying the remaining shares from founder Guy Singh-Watson five years after beginning the transition. Singh-Watson, who set...
View ArticleIn conversation with Guy Singh-Watson
As he sells his final shares in Riverford, Wicked Leeks editor Nina Pullman chats to founder Guy Singh-Watson about his thoughts on ownership, how it feels to step back and what's next.
View ArticleThe madness of maize
While most of Devon is bright green, an emerging patchwork of fields is turning yellow. This is the kiss of death from glyphosate, the ‘world’s favourite herbicide’. Most agriculture starts by removing...
View ArticleWill the last one to leave please turn off the light?
Over lunch in the canteen, I asked our Head of Supply Chain, Dale, when the first new potatoes from Devon and Cornwall would be in your boxes. “July,” he said. I almost choked. What about potatoes from...
View ArticleGlorious awakening
Having caught up on rain-delayed plantings of cabbages, lettuce, and broad beans, we are now busy planting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and chillies in our polytunnels, and squash, sweetcorn, and...
View ArticleComplaints, fruit & critical friends
Much as we seek to avoid complaints, I often argue that we should celebrate any customer who cares enough about Riverford to want to be a ‘critical friend’ and help us do better. We monitor complaints...
View ArticleStriving for inclusivity with Chefs in Schools
Much of my adult life has been devoted to recreating the food idyll of my youth: one where raw ingredients, mostly from the farm, were cooked from scratch and shared around the kitchen table. As a...
View ArticleSweetcorn, rain & stewarding for nature
Spring has been miserable in Devon, but it has been worse in the French Vendée. My farm there is normally frantic in late May, as we cut, box, cool, and dispatch lettuces, chard, cabbages, turnips, and...
View ArticleSlow strawberries & Luddite tendencies
As the equinox approaches, temperatures are finally beginning to rise. Until now, they have languished in the mid teens – causing our strawberries to ripen slowly. In a hot June, we must pick our way...
View ArticleMarsh samphire – a losing battle with tides, mud & geese
Few foods are as hard-won as the marsh samphire that my son and his friends are foraging from the mud flats of the Erme estuary. This marsh was reclaimed from the sea using a sea wall, reputedly built...
View ArticleRediscovering my inner peasant
Scything our pea crop, windrowing it (raking it into rows to dry), and manually feeding the remains into a static threshing machine to extract half a tonne of seeds for next year’s crop has brought...
View ArticleThe blighted progress of potatoes
I have loved growing potatoes since my first memories of helping my mother dig them in the garden. My first commercial crop was harvested with a tiny, gentle, tractor-drawn elevator digger. This sieved...
View ArticleRights, ownership & wealth on Dartmoor… again
As a teenager, then later with my own children, I took the right to wild camp on Dartmoor for granted. Even in the depths of winter, hardy, pack-laden walkers can be seen disappearing into the mist or...
View ArticleVeg & Table: stories to support and savour
This week, we publish our first issue of Veg & Table magazine. It is a bit more ‘lifestyle’ than Wicked Leeks, featuring lots of seasonal, veg-centric recipes that are not fussy or faddy – but it...
View ArticleFarmers Against Farmwashing
British farming is on its knees. Multiple factors contributed, from climate change to ongoing uncertainty about government support. But the main issue is that farmers just cannot survive the prices,...
View ArticleNews from the farm: As the first frost beckons, time is up
For subtropical crops that rely on a good summer to grow in the UK, the time is up. As the sun’s arc dips, temperatures drop, and moisture levels below ground rise, sweetcorn, maize (the less sweet...
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