Most farmers would dismiss Bruce and Clare Jackson’s farm, Yorktown Organics, as a mere garden. There is after all little more than a hectare under cultivation, as well as a few greenhouses.
Small it may be, but this is a very streamlined operation. Bruce says the business “has been a long time in the making†(since 1993) but “we are just getting really good at what we doâ€.
A conventional farmer would recognise too that the work that goes into this patch at the mouth of the Tamar is far from pottering about the garden. Bruce and Clare put in 12-hour days that start at 5.30am during summer, but they have only one other full-time staff member, their son Ben, and “a couple of pickers†to support the operation that turns out more than 50 lines of mostly vegetables and some fruits.
Not everything gets as far south as Hill Street. Our customers will be most familiar with salad greens, including “wild roquette†which while it obviously is not wild, is a much tastier version of rocket.
Baby turnips and swedes also are very popular. These are not true “babies†but the regular version picked very young (and sweet). Yorktown does grow truly baby carrots, a variety called Amsterdam, which even if left to grow on and on, still are only about 75 per cent the size of most full-grown carrots.
Among the 50 different lines the Jacksons grow, may be several different versions or stages of the same plant. Beetroot, for instance, is sold as baby and full-grown beets, baby leaves for salads and as sprouts.
Other sprouts produced at Yorktown Organics include red radish, rocket, mizuna and coriander. Bruce says the coriander sprouts are perfect “if you like coriander but not too muchâ€. However, demand for sprouts is high and quantities are low until new hothouses are built with bed sizes designed for being cropped in one hit. They also will be on an automated watering system instead of having to be watered by hand three times a day as they are at the moment.
Bruce describes himself as a “fast farmer of slow foodâ€. This is because once a crop is cut or pulled, the bed remains empty for less than 24 hours before another is planted - even in winter the green manure crops are turned over smartly.
Retailers like us are Yorktown Organics’ main customers, but there also are chefs from restaurants “a cut above the restâ€. Bruce said such restaurants “are honouring what they are doing; they are actually walking the walkâ€.
The food from Yorktown Organics (certified by NASAA) has real taste, and, like most organic foods, a much longer shelf and fridge life than other fresh produce. Bruce and Clare can be price-setters rather than price-takers, something else that sets them apart from most farmers. And they choose not to sell their products through the big supermarkets.
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