We are 20 years growing and delivering organic vegetables this May. Much has changed for us in the last two decades. It certainly has been a journey. I thought over the next few weeks I might share some of the highs and lows and memories that stand out for me over that time.
Today our business employs somewhere in the region of 45 people, but back in the early days there was just me, my wife Jenny and my dad, Michael. I remember growing our first crops very unsuccessfully I have to say.
I had very little experience but had high aspirations. We put up our first polytunnel in 2005, and started growing in it in 2005 and started our business in 2006.
We had our first visit from the local Garda around then. We were just sitting down to our dinner one evening and there was a knock on the door, the Garda wanted to see what we had growing in this strange plastic house….. 20 years ago, there were none around, at least not this side of the country.
Suffice it to say he saw some strange plants for the West of Ireland, aubergine, tomato, peppers and cucumber, and the Garda went away not completely satisfied. I am not sure he was completely happy with the aubergine plant we had growing, I think he may have thought it was something else, I assured him, (even though there was a distinct lack of aubergines) that in fact it was an eggplant, plant! We never grew aubergines again.
Back then Jenny was working outside the farm (today she works full time as a primary school teacher) and if it wasn’t for her income, we would not have survived, I don’t think we managed to take any form of income out of the business for the first five years. Our work week did not stop we worked all the time, we were growing the vegetables, importing vegetables, taking orders, answering the phones, packing the orders, building makeshift coldrooms and shelving, figuring out which bit fitted into which bit on our very old small tractor, fixing things that were constantly breaking down, weeding, sowing, weeding, planting, weeding, harvesting, it was nonstop.
We packed our first boxes in our shed behind our house, on scaffolding planks set up on used Guiness barrels.
There was no time to think, or to take holidays. There was no social media, the internet and online shopping was in its infancy, people paid us in cash, we collected the cash when we delivered our boxes, we counted the cash, deposited the cash, and always we were weeding and despite the cash we actually had no cash, we were broke.
It was busy and it was just us; we had no responsibility for anybody else, there is a freedom in that, but also pressure and limitations, because as we quickly figured out you cannot do everything yourself.
We had debt, we had fun, we had customers, at least some (don’t get me started on the supermarkets, I’ll keep that for another day). We had good weeks bad weeks and everything in between, but we seemed somehow or another to make it work, we hired our first real employee, a massive milestone and a huge learning curve, and always we were weeding and learning, to be continued….
Your support for our farm and our small independent business means so much
As always thank you for your support.
Kenneth