Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER FIVE
The hungry gap
The 'hungry gap' occurs between the end of March (when stored fresh produce
deteriorates) and the start of June (when the earliest broad beans are ready).
During this period the outdoor garden cannot produce a wide variety of food as
there simply hasn't been enough time for it to have matured since the winter
frosts. So if you aim to eat as much home-grown food as possible, the hungry gap
is where you either fall off the wagon or have a really, really boring diet. Thanks
to modern storage techniques, the hungry gap is no longer the dangerous period
of food shortage that it once was, but imported shop-bought food should always
be a last resort - particularly if it is unseasonal. Organic or not, who really wants
string beans grown 5,000km away in soil starved of minerals, and refrigerated
for weeks?
A polytunnel can shrink or even banish the hungry gap in several ways. Firstly,
it can bring early crops (such as broad beans) forward. Secondly, a large covered
area allows hardier crops (such as celeriac) to overwinter in much better condi-
tion than outside. And finally, a polytunnel makes it possible to harvest a variety
of produce (such as salad leaves, carrots and kohlrabi) all year round.
Timing is everything
The British Isles sits in an area of confluence between Arctic, Tropical and Polar
air masses, with continental and maritime varieties of each. This area wobbles
back and forth, depending on the relative strengths of each of these contributing
elements, giving us our typical British Weather: fronts, depressions and rain. On
the plus side we very rarely see extremes of weather, although climate change
models suggest that these are likely to become more frequent in future.
Statistically speaking, we can be fairly certain that for much of the British Isles
there is very little light available to plants from December to February, but the
weather in the months straddling this period is extremely hard to predict, and
this makes the timing of crops for the hungry gap something of a black art.
However, there are a few things you can do to give yourself a head start - see box
overleaf.
