Western Morning News (Saturday)
SPOTLIGHT ON...
HOW TO SAVE AND STORE BULBS
ARE you a chucker or a saver? Some people are quite happy to dump frost-tender summer bulbs and buy new next year. But real gardeners find it hard to abandon perfectly good plants, particularly when it’s easy to keep them.
Begonias are no trouble. If they are being grown in pots, reduce the watering when the plants stop producing new flowers, and by the time the leaves have turned yellow and the stems snap off, the tubers are dormant.
Ease tubers out of the compost, make sure they are bone dry, and keep in paper bags in a drawer until spring.
Dwarf gladioli, eucomis and tigridia are even easier. Wait for late flowering to finish, leave them a week or two for the leaves to die down, then cut any remaining foliage and flower stems off just above the tops of the bulbs and dry them ready to store.
Again, paper bags in the spare room are best, but if that’s out of the question, spread them out in stackable plastic trays in a shed or garage that isn’t at risk of frost.
With dahlias, leave them outdoors until the first serious frost causes the foliage to turn black, then cut the whole lot down to about six inches above the ground and then dig up the tubers.
Brush as much soil off as you can, lay them out in the sun to dry and store in plastic stacking trays.
IT’S one of those products we tend to take for granted. Milk is something that’s just there, in the fridge – we put it on our cereals and add it to our tea and coffee. If we give it a second thought we might envisage happy cows in green pastures, and that’s about it. Because milk is a staple. We assume it will always be there, in the shops, in our homes – and that over the hills and far away some farmer somewhere will be milking a herd of mooing bovines, just like they’ve always done.
But not all milk is the same. Indeed, there are an increasing number of milks which have nothing to do with dairy cows at all. To put it at its most basic, the story of milk is a big one – taking in politics, macro-and-micro economics and both natural and farmed environments.
Anyone who keeps an eye on the news will have seen quarrels between dairy farmers and the supermarket chains which offer milk as a loss leader and pay suppliers accordingly. They’ll also have heard of dairy herds where cows live in vast indoor sheds and never see the light of day. Not surprisingly such stories give fuel to plant-eating evangelists who say we should not be using animal products in our food chain.
One well known Cornish dairy producer who agrees not all milk is the same has seen all these issues and arguments since he began looking after cows on his father’s Devon dairy farm five decades ago.
As founder and chairman of Trewithen Dairy, Bill Clarke has watched every tsunami that has been thrown at the milk industry over the past half century and, being an intelligent man and something of a philosopher, he has pondered long and hard over the creamy tides which have swashed his favourite liquid this way and that. Indeed, his company has worked hard to win itself a good name within the industry and beyond – the Trewithen brand is synonymous with good practice, care and attention to detail.
So this happens to be a timely moment to speak with Bill on the subject of milk... For a start, there’s that increasing body of thought led by the vegan movement that any animal-based food in our diet is bad for the planet – hence the flood of alternative “milks” on the supermarket shelves.
To counter that, there’s a story emerging at Trewithen which is both interesting and which might help convince consumers that good dairy milk – produced within a sustainable farming system – could actually be beneficial for the environment.
At the moment it is only a seed of a story, but don’t think it couldn’t happen because Bill Clarke is nothing if he’s not a pioneer. Listen to his story of a life spent within the dairy world and you realise that this tall, lean 66-year-old has always been a forward-thinker.
The success story of Trewithen Dairy – with its 200 employees and 30 contracted farms and its reach across the UK retail scene – is proof of that. The actual day-to-day running of the business is now in the hands of his sons Francis and George, but it was Bill who over many years pioneered new ways of operating in the highly competitive dairy sector.
We haven’t room to go into the full story here – suffice to say Bill left school at 18 to work on his father’s farm near Honiton. A few years later he was married and starting his own smaller dairy operation. He and wife Rachel then moved to a larger farm near Lostwithiel where they were able to expand their dairy business, eventually taking the decision to sell direct to the public. The business kept growing, especially after their own Glynn Valley brand purchased another Cornish business, known as Trewithen Dairy.
But perhaps the biggest and most risky decision they made was to contract other dairy farms to supply milk into their burgeoning business. It was a brave move at a time when political changes were allowing large companies and cooperatives to monopolise the sector but it was one which soon saw Trewithen develop as a major player within the Westcountry milk world.
The business continues to flourish even in these difficult times, but I wanted to learn more about how the company is beginning to interest itself in what is known as “regenerative farming”.
For some years Bill Clarke has been fascinated by the term – which basically describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity. This results in benefits such as carbon drawdown and an improvement in the natural water cycle.
The Clarke family emphasise that Trewithen Dairy is keen to take an interest in the practice, but that they are only at the beginning of a long journey which could one day see a great deal of their raw milk being produced on regenerative farms.
Bill explains: “When I left school it was a different time. What we did was produce a large amount – surpluses were being dumped in Africa, and so on. It was a crazy world. We were coming out of a post-war period with rationing and government bodies were giving farmers free advice. They were telling us to use more fertilisers – nitrogen, phosphate and so on. The fertiliser companies loved it and were very good at promoting it too. The whole thing was... not corrupt... but it was bizarre. That was the world in which I learned to
be a farmer. We were using ever more fertilisers to produce ever more milk – just to dump it! Eventually you start to think: what are we going to do about this?
“It was in the 1980s and people started to pop up with organic ideas, and I was interested. I went to meetings and conferences, but I was never quite persuaded by this arbitrary bunch of (organic) rules. However, we did learn a staggering amount from those organic farms.
“That’s when I started thinking about soil. It is a mystery isn’t it? We now know a thousand times more about soil than we did then but we still know less about it than we know about planet Mars.
“One day I went to a meeting in Wadebridge where they were promoting learning about soil. They brought down a top professor and there was a free buffet. This was in 1996. How many do you think were there? Free buffet, free learning about soil from a top professor? Well, there was the ADAS guy and the professor, and me. I was the only farmer who turned up!
“Later I joined a group called The Huers, aimed at improving agriculture for Cornwall. A guy who joined was into regenerative farming and I loved listening to him. I learned more and more.
“But three or four years ago it started to come through that people were achieving great results using the foundation of all this guy had talked about. This was a real eye-opener. To have any chance of producing a decent amount of milk with that sort of approach, where you are gradually building up this wonderful soil with all the biodiversity bonuses that go with it... that was a really exciting moment.”
This was when Bill began talking about regenerative farming with his sons and colleagues at Trewithen, and with people like Tim Smit of the Eden Project, which the dairy has supplied from the outset. A trip to an experimental farming set-up in Ireland and a visit to the regenerative farming conference all began to convince Bill it was the
right way to go. “I have loved every minute of it. It’s important to have areas dedicated to wildlife but you also need to be producing food – and regenerative farming allows both in harmony. Somehow the marriage of these two things feels within reach now,” says Bill, who told me about Trewithen’s relationship with a regenerative farming ‘consultant’ called Tom Tolputt. “He blows me away – I find him so interesting. The joy and pleasure of getting down on your knees and taking a handful of soil and smelling it! That moment when you can actually smell the difference between good soil and not so good soil... it’s magical.”
Trewithen Dairy has now started working on regenerative farming with some of its contracted farmers and is already seeing results – various mixed sward grazing areas are being established and, as a happy by-product, wildlife is beginning to return.
“We saw a barn owl come in – we’ve seen a number now – it’s just a joy,” says Bill with a smile. “Tom is convinced we will produce just as much as the farm next door – and if you do this right, it comes with all this biodiversity.”
So Trewithen is certainly acting as a pioneer, but at the same time the Clarkes are being careful not to fly any flag that doesn’t have the full stamp of authenticity.
“We don’t necessarily shout about all the good stuff we do,” Bill shrugs. “Currently we are investing in, and building our knowledge with, the farmers. As a processor of milk we are at the stage where we want to be doing the right thing and be responsible – to learn about it and encourage the farmers to come on the journey with us. This is something we all are very excited about and it’s going to be central to the Trewithen brand without doubt. But we have a long way to go yet.”