The run in to Christmas is on and the hours have increased across the board. We are running two shifts in the yard and one field shift to cover off the carrot and parsnip harvesting for Christmas.

It's nice to get through some decent volumes in a short time but the hours are pretty cruel at the moment, with 18 hour days on offer every day.

With order volumes changing quite quickly, we have to react on our end at very short notice to cancelling a shift or adding a shift to get all the produce out the gate. This can often mean sitting down for 20 minutes and working through a list of drivers and packhouse workers to let them all know about the change of schedule. It’s a nightmare.

Field conditions

Field conditions have improved, making the parsnip harvest a lot easier in the last few days. The rains today (Tuesday) will put us back in terms of output a little.

On the subject of weather, most mornings before I get out of bed, I read some form of a report or article telling us about the impending weather doom that is going to freeze the country until next spring. It does nothing for my mood for the day that ensues.

With the bust for Christmas on, I’m not sure when we will finish up. As parsnips are so perishable, we need to dig right up to the last day of shopping. This perishable nature means we will be in the field at 4am tomorrow morning, digging to have parsnips on the shop shelf that night ready for the following morning.

Working on such a tight timeline for digging, processing and delivery puts a lot of pressure on the chain. The weakest link in the chain is the field and the conditions underfoot. We grow predominantly on light ground that sieves water very well. Even on sand, rain overhead at the time of digging is a nightmare for man and machine.

Farmer writers meeting

I nipped away last Friday morning to meet the other farmer writes contributors in the IFJ headquarters and had a great time. It was great to meet the other guys and see what they are up to. As the only tillage contributor there, I was up against it with a group who spend most of their life chasing furry, four legged animals around. The poor old parsnip got a good bit of flak but it was good fun nonetheless.