This year we are really struggling with produce. A significant number of late frosts caused havoc with the asparagus crop, not just here at Bothen Hill but throughout the country. It was late and yields weren’t up to expectations. We know that no 2 years are the same, but following from a bumper season last year it was very difficult.
Additionally, there’s been a knock on effect with just about all of our other crops; we’ve had several crop failures, specifically with the sweet potatoes which were wiped out completely. We’ve also suffered failure on sowings of courgettes, french and runner beans and lettuce. All of these vegetables have been replanted and are growing well, it just means that everything is a lot later than we expected.
The frost managed to affect various things in the poly tunnels as well where we lost a fair number of tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines and peppers. Sadly it also took out our entire crop of apricots, although we are hopeful that we may harvest some from the outside tree.
We can’t do anything about nature, we just have to work with it, so please bear with us whilst we try and catch up.