So, what do burnt out market gardener’s do in Winter? They go on holiday. I went abroad for the first time in years. And intended to totally forget about the stresses and strains of running the farm.
I wandered around Malta’s museums and cathedrals, ate ice-cream, and enjoyed the Spring like sunshine. The capital Valletta has fantastic alleyways and cafe culture, Medina is a tiny walled town, and Marsaxlokk has fresh fish to eat by the sea.
But I am a market gardener, and couldn’t quite separate myself enough not think about Malta’s farming. Especially as it appears to be a country of market gardeners. With fresh crops growing everywhere I looked, in small fertile pockets and terraces, and larger spaces with cloches and polytunnels. And it was really small-scale, nothing bigger than a few acres, and often much less. And higgledy piggledy in a way I love, everything on different levels, due to the inclines in the terrain.
I saw (and ate) lots of strawberries, garlic, courgettes, tomatoes and
broad beans. And also some pea and potato plants, onions, cabbages, and one stall had rocket. The markets, stores and supermarkets were full of freshly grown local produce. The small stores also drew attention to the freshness and localness of their Maltese veg.
Due to the small size, the cultivation was done by small rotovaters, which is what I largely use
at Reddy Lane. They are small tractors that you walk behind to guide. They are small to manoeuvre, and plough up the topsoil, giving you a weed free tilth to work on. But they do not disturb the subsoil or compact the soil in the way a tractor does. In Malta, growers were also using a very small one that weeds in between your rows of crops. This gives a quite distinct style to their market gardens, as everything looks very neat and tidy, and straight rows are an absolute must. I do not do this at Reddy Lane, which often does not look neat and tidy, so its something to think about. But its a lot of effort simply to make something look tidy, though not necessarily more productive.
I was unable to tell whether the crops were organic with a small O. They certainly weren’t certified as organic, but lots of small-scale providers don’t certify, due to prohibitive costs, they just don’t use pesticide. I saw a couple of gardeners walking down with backpack sprayers, and this could have been a pesticide application, or a traditional compost tea. The aesthetic quality of the cauliflowers, calabrese broccoli and strawberries did suggest pesticide use though.
I saw a couple of women out there with pushing the rotavaters too, and driving trucks to market, and working on the market stalls.
And if you get the chance Malta was lovely in lots of other ways too 🙂
