Strawberry Picking
The Strawberries are grown in “Spanish Tunnels”, this is a soil free system, using raised shelves with bags of coconut coir to grow the strawberry plants. They feed them via nutrients in the water. This helps to keep the plants healthy and efficient. The height of the plants makes it easy for the fruit to be picked. The tunnels are monitored for heat and humidity and opened up every day to control the climate. The future will be self regulating tents that can open and close the roof weather dependent. It is a long way from growing in the soil with straw as a bedding. The yield is so much higher and the quality too.
The farm we were photographing grows many types of fruit but has 200 acres dedicated to strawberries. Picking over 4 million punnets of fruit a year with over a 1,000 workers on site. How farming has moved on!
A great day apart from the 4 and a half hour crawl around the M25 at the end of the day.
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