Clyde Valley Tomatoes
> VERY BERRY
enough to give them an interest-free loan, and Jim Craig found himself advising the Clyde Valley’s next generation of growers. Briarneuk Nursery is now home to Clyde Valley Tomatoes, and to David Craig (no relation) and Scott Robertson. They met Jim in April 2012 and, having sold their house to move into a caravan on site, by May the following year were picking their first cherry tomatoes. After a winter spent clearing, weeding, cleaning and re-stocking, the glasshouses glint in the sun overlooking the valley, birdsong the only sound. Tomato growing is quiet, but not, as Craig and Robertson have found out, relaxing. As of August 2013, they have had just Christmas Day off from their ten thousand vines. ‘In many ways it’s like having children,’ says Craig. ‘Plants never take a day off; they need constant care – the right temperature, the right humidity, the fruit picking, and then it’s off to farmers’ markets.’ It might not be too long before they can take on the staff that will allow them more time off, as business has expanded rapidly. ‘In some ways we have been victims of our own success,’ says Craig of the huge interest in Clyde Valley Tomatoes. ‘Demand for the specialist tomatoes is outstripping supply. In the
first few months we had ten enquiries a day – some people became quite aggressive because we couldn’t supply them.’ The restaurants that have been granted access to these tomatoes announce their provenance on menus with pride: the heritage of the fruit is a key part of its appeal. ‘We were so disappointed two years ago when we received the last delivery from Jim Craig,’ says Carina Contini, owner of the Scottish Café and Centotre in Edinburgh. ‘So to hear that a new generation were keen to start growing was fabulous news. We feel Clyde Valley’s tomatoes are the best in Britain.’ The success of the heritage and specialist tomatoes – they’ve planted fourteen varieties, and three of cucumbers – has convinced Craig and Robertson that this is the future of the business, and they intend to scale back the classic rounds. They would also like to launch their own range of chutneys to use up excess produce and to provide an income throughout the winter. ‘If there’s ever going to be a Scottish tomato revival,’ said Jim Craig in 2009, ‘I doubt I’ll be here to see it.’ Four years later, his glasshouses are stocked from end to end and the Clyde Valley’s tomatoes are red-hot news once again.
John Hannah’s family have grown soft fruit at Cleghorn’s Richland Nurseries since 1938, but now John and his wife Louise are the Clyde Valley’s only remaining strawberry growers. They produce both spring and autumn crops of the all-rounder Elsanta variety in two vast heated glasshouses, with two polytunnels in use to fill the summer gap. Farming their juicy, ruby-red strawberries is not an exact science, Louise says, because ‘no two years are the same: there are so many elements, like Mother Nature.’ Their largest, halfacre greenhouse suns 20,000 strawberry plants, with flowers pollinated by bees hived in cardboard boxes. ‘The bees don’t fly here – they come by courier,’ Louise jokes. But despite the size of the task, she’s still undaunted by harvesting: ‘We pick daily, to deliver daily, so the customer has the freshest strawberry possible.’ (Sandy Neil)
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