others will be safe.’ Then she grinned, looking up at me as if she had known all the time what I had been thinking, making me feel foolish, ‘I’ll be working an extra half-hour today!’
We had a wonderful crop of tomatoes that summer, and Jeannie and I were quick to realise that the success was a signpost to the future. We still grew potatoes on a large scale, but here was an alternative for a summer income which did not suffer the everlasting threat of obliteration by the elements. I saw too another particular advantage. Tomatoes and potatoes are of the same family, and if our district was noted for the earliness of the potatoes, it could also be noted for the earliness of the tomatoes; and earliness, of course, meant a chance of higher prices. Furthermore there was not the expense of sending the crop to distant markets. We could sell every tomato we picked in Penzance. The vast influx of holiday-makers were waiting to eat them.
We put in the plants, that first year, in the beginning of April, and by the middle of June they were a festoon of ripening fruit. We began to have visitors. Word had got around among neighbouring farmers of our good fortune and, although they would never grow a tomato themselves, they could not forbear to investigate the extent of our success. It was a relief to us that we had something so pleasant to show them. It was a change. Instead of insecurely seeking their advice I was able to talk to them on a subject they knew nothing about. Of course, I knew little myself, and I am not much wiser even now; but I have learned certain principles which now set the pace of our growing at Minack.
It is no use growing our own plants from seed because too much time and labour are involved. Seedlings require the art of the expert and in my case, as far as we were concerned, they take up space in a greenhouse just at the period when we need that space for the winter flower crop. It is more profitable, therefore, to collect cash for the flowers and pay out cash for the plants.
But this policy is not as straightforward as it sounds. If we grew our own plants they would be there on the premises to plant out in their permanent positions whenever it happened to suit us. We could delay or hasten the planting out according to the progress of the winter flowers; if the flowers, freesias, for instance, were still blooming and fetching a good price, we could hold back the tomatoes for a week or so. If, because of a warm spring, the flowers finished early, the tomatoes could be planted early. We would, in fact, be independent.
As it is we are at the mercy of whoever it is we have asked to supply us. We order the plants before Christmas, state a guesswork of a date when we will want them, then are ready to accept the panic which is sure to beset us. It is not only the progress of our flowers that we have to worry about; we can also expect the supplier suddenly to disrupt our carefully laid plans by saying he is delivering the plants a week early, or for that matter, it could equally be a week later.
Thus from the middle of March to the beginning of April every year I am generally in a state of high excitement. I am not alone. Tomato growers all over the country are also yelping cries of distress. Shall we scrap the flowers, which are still earning us money? If we don’t, where can we put the tomatoes in the meantime? Don’t you realise they’ll get leggy if we put the soil blocks too close? Surely it’s wiser to look after the tomatoes from the beginning?
When the turmoil is over and the plants are in the ground, there begins a pleasant period of observation. The period in which the little plants create pleasure by the sturdy way they show they accept their new quarters. It is now that Jeannie and I will waste time together in the greenhouse, staring fixedly at the plants and making remarks to each other such as:
‘They’re an awfully good colour.’
‘That one over there has a flower
We had a wonderful crop of tomatoes that summer, and Jeannie and I were quick to realise that the success was a signpost to the future. We still grew potatoes on a large scale, but here was an alternative for a summer income which did not suffer the everlasting threat of obliteration by the elements. I saw too another particular advantage. Tomatoes and potatoes are of the same family, and if our district was noted for the earliness of the potatoes, it could also be noted for the earliness of the tomatoes; and earliness, of course, meant a chance of higher prices. Furthermore there was not the expense of sending the crop to distant markets. We could sell every tomato we picked in Penzance. The vast influx of holiday-makers were waiting to eat them.
We put in the plants, that first year, in the beginning of April, and by the middle of June they were a festoon of ripening fruit. We began to have visitors. Word had got around among neighbouring farmers of our good fortune and, although they would never grow a tomato themselves, they could not forbear to investigate the extent of our success. It was a relief to us that we had something so pleasant to show them. It was a change. Instead of insecurely seeking their advice I was able to talk to them on a subject they knew nothing about. Of course, I knew little myself, and I am not much wiser even now; but I have learned certain principles which now set the pace of our growing at Minack.
It is no use growing our own plants from seed because too much time and labour are involved. Seedlings require the art of the expert and in my case, as far as we were concerned, they take up space in a greenhouse just at the period when we need that space for the winter flower crop. It is more profitable, therefore, to collect cash for the flowers and pay out cash for the plants.
But this policy is not as straightforward as it sounds. If we grew our own plants they would be there on the premises to plant out in their permanent positions whenever it happened to suit us. We could delay or hasten the planting out according to the progress of the winter flowers; if the flowers, freesias, for instance, were still blooming and fetching a good price, we could hold back the tomatoes for a week or so. If, because of a warm spring, the flowers finished early, the tomatoes could be planted early. We would, in fact, be independent.
As it is we are at the mercy of whoever it is we have asked to supply us. We order the plants before Christmas, state a guesswork of a date when we will want them, then are ready to accept the panic which is sure to beset us. It is not only the progress of our flowers that we have to worry about; we can also expect the supplier suddenly to disrupt our carefully laid plans by saying he is delivering the plants a week early, or for that matter, it could equally be a week later.
Thus from the middle of March to the beginning of April every year I am generally in a state of high excitement. I am not alone. Tomato growers all over the country are also yelping cries of distress. Shall we scrap the flowers, which are still earning us money? If we don’t, where can we put the tomatoes in the meantime? Don’t you realise they’ll get leggy if we put the soil blocks too close? Surely it’s wiser to look after the tomatoes from the beginning?
When the turmoil is over and the plants are in the ground, there begins a pleasant period of observation. The period in which the little plants create pleasure by the sturdy way they show they accept their new quarters. It is now that Jeannie and I will waste time together in the greenhouse, staring fixedly at the plants and making remarks to each other such as:
‘They’re an awfully good colour.’
‘That one over there has a flower
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