Visit to an Onion Field
2010
Visit to an Onion Field
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On Thursday 13th May 2010, I met with Richard Haacker of Eastern Growers of Scotland, in Cupar, Fife. We went out to visit one of their onion fields, just outside Cupar, to talk about onions and their production.
Whilst driving out to the onion field I talked to Richard about my involvement with Saughton Park. I explained that during World War II, as part of the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign, Land Girls had allegedly dug over the ornamental flower beds in the gardens and replaced them with onions. When harvested, the onions had apparently been distributed to the hospitals of Edinburgh. I told him I was currently trying to research historical information about the Land Girls and onions at Saughton but was finding it difficult to unearth any details about them. To date all I knew was the information that was displayed on the signboards in the park.
I went on to say that during the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign in the 1940s, public open spaces throughout Edinburgh were allocated for the production of food. I was keen to understand how land was apportioned. As it seemed that only onions had been grown at Saughton, I explained that I was trying establish whether a strategy had existed to cultivate mono species of vegetables in different areas of the city. I was also curious to find out if there was something unique about the soil and conditions of Saughton Gardens that had determined it as a place suitable for growing onions.
Richard pointed out that onions are not a typically Scottish crop to grow, as they prefer warmer soils. He then asked if Saughton Gardens were enclosed. Things began to make sense. Saughton Gardens are not only walled but they are divided up by tall yew hedges. This additional shelter would have created a warmer microclimate, making the gardens an ideal place to grow sensitive onions, whilst hardy crops, such as potatoes, would have been grown out in the fields. He doubted whether monocultures of crops would have been grown around Edinburgh but this is something I would still like to look into. I would also like to find out whether other walled gardens throughout the country were targeted for onions.
Thinking about the surprisingly tricky growing requirements of onions, I told Richard that I had recently bought a couple of books that had writings from the 1940’s gardener C.H. Middleton. In one of the books, Middleton wrote an entire chapter about onions, titled the ‘The Elusive Onion’, where he revealed that these relatively common and unassuming vegetables are actually quite awkward to grow.
I also mentioned that I had done a quick tour of supermarkets in Edinburgh the week before my visit to Cupar and was surprised to see that most of the salad onions stocked on the shelves were grown in Mexico and Egypt. Brown onions were from either the UK or Holland. I joked that I was beginning to sound like an obsessed ‘onion geek’ but that it was necessary for me to find out all I could in order for me to build up a narrative.
He laughed and responded that most of the onions sold in our stores will be produced in the UK and in particular the south of England. The climate there allows for a longer growing season and contemporary methods of storage extends the length of time they can be stocked. Outside this period, onions will often come from Holland and even as far as Tasmania.
Turning left off the road and into a field I wondered if I had heard correctly. Tasmania? I would ask him about that later.
Stepping out of the large four wheel drive, I was faced by endless rows of young onions. It was cold and windy and there was no shelter in this field. I thought to myself that the gardens at Saughton would be considered ‘tropical’ in comparison to this open expanse of earth. It was great to be there, standing in the field of a plant that I am beginning to become better acquainted with; face to face with the protagonist of a story I was about to commence.
We stood at the edge of the onion field and Richard asked me what I wanted to know from him about onions. I struggled to find somewhere to begin. I explained that I was trying to compare current cultivation techniques with methods used during the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign and that I was interested to know how things have progressed since then. I wanted to imagine what it might feel like to be a land girl standing amidst a field of onions and to have an understanding of the daily procedures they possibly carried out. Also, I was interested to know where the onions grown at Eastern Growers of Scotland (EGS) ended up.
Richard began by saying that all the onions they grow at Cupar are distributed to the north of Scotland as conditions are not suitable for growing onions up there; they cannot compete with the growers from the south. Most of the onions end up within the processed food industry, predominantly in soups.
I was curious to know whether EGS had ever had a hospital as a client and Richard explained that they had once tendered for the NHS but could not compete with growers from the south of England. He believed that all food supplied to the NHS would be from down south.
Noticing some onion sets scattered around the ends of the rows, I asked whether EGS grew onions from sets and not from seed. He confirmed that they used sets and explained that they do not have a long enough season in Fife to grow onions from seed. In the south of England they would be grown from seed and from sets, I guessed to vary harvest times, and also they would allow some crops to go to seed. He then talked me through what sets were and how they were produced.
Onion sets, he believed would not have been available during the war. I told him that in Middleton’s writings he does actually touch upon the use of sets but it does seem at the time that onions were mostly grown from seed. I wondered whether the Land Girls had cultivated onions from seed or from sets?
Walking further into the field I asked whether the sets were planted by hand or by machine, although I had already gauged from what I saw in front of me that it was not the work of hands. Yes, Richard confirmed that this was done by a machine. Five rows of onion sets were planted at a time. Then pointing to some juvenile onions that were clustered closely in a line, he said that unfortunately there was no way for the machinery to space the onions evenly and so the onion bulbs would not grow in uniform sizes. The onions grown there were completely acceptable but the invention of a machine that would space onion sets at an equal distance would be a major development to the growers.
Weeds, he also added, pulling one out of the soil, were dealt with by a spraying of herbicide. Again by machine and not by hand.
I asked whether EGS grew red onions. He confirmed that they grew only brown onions as there was no market for them to grow red ones. I also enquired what varieties they grew at Cupar as I was interested to see if there was an evolution of varieties since the 1940’s. He said they mainly used Romba and Sturin and named a few other varieties that commercial growers used. He then commented that the varieties of onions you can buy in garden centres and shops are generally older, since the cost of commercial varieties would be too expensive to be sold to the general public.
Richard remarked that onions can often suffer badly from mildew and if a variety of onion could be produced to be resistant to this it would be an important breakthrough to the commercial growers.
I told Richard that I had tried to find out more about the scientific side of commercial onion growing but my attempts had proven futile. I had contacted the Scottish Agricultural College to see if they could enlighten me with anything relating to this but had been surprised to find out that nobody could assist me. Richard responded that to be honest there were currently no amazing advancements and that things had reached a bit of a plateaux. He felt that the main period of change since the 1940s would have been during the 60s and 70s when the the agricultural world witnessed a revolution of traditional methods of farming.
Looking out into the rather empty and desolate looking field, I said that it was amazing to watch the Ministry of Agriculture propaganda films for the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign. Teams of people appeared to very busy and industrious within the Victory Gardens, and prescriptive instructions were shown on the films of the preparation of soils and the cultivation of food plants. Richard agreed that even in his parents’ time that working the land was very much a team effort and that they often talked about potato picking holidays where hoards of people helped out with the harvest. Things had evidently changed since then.
I wondered aloud what a typical day in the life of a Saughton onion Land Girl could have been like? What tasks would they have undertaken? How did they fill a day tending to onions? Did they only grow onions or were there other types of food plants? And what did they do in the winter months?
Richard suggested that perhaps the Land Girls’ work at Saughton was seasonal and that possibly they moved on to other sites. But then giving it further thought he appreciated that there would actually be quite a lot to do with the harvesting and storage of the onions and perhaps this would have been quite time consuming in those days.
The fact that the land girls were reputed to have lived in Saughtonhall Manor suggests to me that there was an endless amount of work for them to do. Nevertheless it is clear that I really need to get to the bottom of what this was.
Richard talked me through the final stages of the onions’ cultivation; the chopping of the leaves; the drying of the bulb’s skins and methods of storage. We then speak again about Tasmania. With its dry and sunny climate, onions can successfully dry out in the field in Tasmania, making it an ideal place for the commercial production of onions. The onions are shipped over to the UK by boat and not by plane.
Richard remembered from my original email I had sent him that I had been interested in the health benefits of onions. I answered that I was aware that they were very good for people but was more concerned to discover whether the onions that had been distributed to the hospitals were supplied for health reasons or simply as a cooking ingredient for meals. He doubted that in the 1940s the health benefits of onions would have been fully understood so it seems unlikely that they would have been grown for anything other than a food resource, albeit a nutritious one. He then added that he did know someone who had studied the health benefits of onions and they had concluded that onions were exceptionally good for you if eaten raw. Like all vegetables nutritional value breaks down when they are cooked. I laughed at the thought of eating raw onions and the social repercussions this would have but then again I eat spring onions in salads so perhaps it was not such an odd proposition.
Walking back to the jeep, I said that I had recently been talking to a fellow artist about onions and that he had reminded me that they had once been used to make invisible ink. I had been familiar with invisible ink as a child but had since forgotten about it. We had also gone on to speculate that perhaps the onions at Saughton had been grown for propaganda purposes only and that they were not actually grown for food, and that perhaps I should make an exhibition of invisible art; a series of drawings made from invisible onion ink. Or perhaps not with the ink, would anybody actually know? Richard laughed and asked if I would get away with that. I answered “Probably not”.
On the subject of invisibility, one thing was evident; I needed to find some Saughton Land Girls to answer many of my questions.
>>>>
On Thursday 13th May 2010, I met with Richard Haacker of Eastern Growers of Scotland, in Cupar, Fife. We went out to visit one of their onion fields, just outside Cupar, to talk about onions and their production.
Whilst driving out to the onion field I talked to Richard about my involvement with Saughton Park. I explained that during World War II, as part of the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign, Land Girls had allegedly dug over the ornamental flower beds in the gardens and replaced them with onions. When harvested, the onions had apparently been distributed to the hospitals of Edinburgh. I told him I was currently trying to research historical information about the Land Girls and onions at Saughton but was finding it difficult to unearth any details about them. To date all I knew was the information that was displayed on the signboards in the park.
I went on to say that during the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign in the 1940s, public open spaces throughout Edinburgh were allocated for the production of food. I was keen to understand how land was apportioned. As it seemed that only onions had been grown at Saughton, I explained that I was trying establish whether a strategy had existed to cultivate mono species of vegetables in different areas of the city. I was also curious to find out if there was something unique about the soil and conditions of Saughton Gardens that had determined it as a place suitable for growing onions.
Richard pointed out that onions are not a typically Scottish crop to grow, as they prefer warmer soils. He then asked if Saughton Gardens were enclosed. Things began to make sense. Saughton Gardens are not only walled but they are divided up by tall yew hedges. This additional shelter would have created a warmer microclimate, making the gardens an ideal place to grow sensitive onions, whilst hardy crops, such as potatoes, would have been grown out in the fields. He doubted whether monocultures of crops would have been grown around Edinburgh but this is something I would still like to look into. I would also like to find out whether other walled gardens throughout the country were targeted for onions.
Thinking about the surprisingly tricky growing requirements of onions, I told Richard that I had recently bought a couple of books that had writings from the 1940’s gardener C.H. Middleton. In one of the books, Middleton wrote an entire chapter about onions, titled the ‘The Elusive Onion’, where he revealed that these relatively common and unassuming vegetables are actually quite awkward to grow.
I also mentioned that I had done a quick tour of supermarkets in Edinburgh the week before my visit to Cupar and was surprised to see that most of the salad onions stocked on the shelves were grown in Mexico and Egypt. Brown onions were from either the UK or Holland. I joked that I was beginning to sound like an obsessed ‘onion geek’ but that it was necessary for me to find out all I could in order for me to build up a narrative.
He laughed and responded that most of the onions sold in our stores will be produced in the UK and in particular the south of England. The climate there allows for a longer growing season and contemporary methods of storage extends the length of time they can be stocked. Outside this period, onions will often come from Holland and even as far as Tasmania.
Turning left off the road and into a field I wondered if I had heard correctly. Tasmania? I would ask him about that later.
Stepping out of the large four wheel drive, I was faced by endless rows of young onions. It was cold and windy and there was no shelter in this field. I thought to myself that the gardens at Saughton would be considered ‘tropical’ in comparison to this open expanse of earth. It was great to be there, standing in the field of a plant that I am beginning to become better acquainted with; face to face with the protagonist of a story I was about to commence.
We stood at the edge of the onion field and Richard asked me what I wanted to know from him about onions. I struggled to find somewhere to begin. I explained that I was trying to compare current cultivation techniques with methods used during the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign and that I was interested to know how things have progressed since then. I wanted to imagine what it might feel like to be a land girl standing amidst a field of onions and to have an understanding of the daily procedures they possibly carried out. Also, I was interested to know where the onions grown at Eastern Growers of Scotland (EGS) ended up.
Richard began by saying that all the onions they grow at Cupar are distributed to the north of Scotland as conditions are not suitable for growing onions up there; they cannot compete with the growers from the south. Most of the onions end up within the processed food industry, predominantly in soups.
I was curious to know whether EGS had ever had a hospital as a client and Richard explained that they had once tendered for the NHS but could not compete with growers from the south of England. He believed that all food supplied to the NHS would be from down south.
Noticing some onion sets scattered around the ends of the rows, I asked whether EGS grew onions from sets and not from seed. He confirmed that they used sets and explained that they do not have a long enough season in Fife to grow onions from seed. In the south of England they would be grown from seed and from sets, I guessed to vary harvest times, and also they would allow some crops to go to seed. He then talked me through what sets were and how they were produced.
Onion sets, he believed would not have been available during the war. I told him that in Middleton’s writings he does actually touch upon the use of sets but it does seem at the time that onions were mostly grown from seed. I wondered whether the Land Girls had cultivated onions from seed or from sets?
Walking further into the field I asked whether the sets were planted by hand or by machine, although I had already gauged from what I saw in front of me that it was not the work of hands. Yes, Richard confirmed that this was done by a machine. Five rows of onion sets were planted at a time. Then pointing to some juvenile onions that were clustered closely in a line, he said that unfortunately there was no way for the machinery to space the onions evenly and so the onion bulbs would not grow in uniform sizes. The onions grown there were completely acceptable but the invention of a machine that would space onion sets at an equal distance would be a major development to the growers.
Weeds, he also added, pulling one out of the soil, were dealt with by a spraying of herbicide. Again by machine and not by hand.
I asked whether EGS grew red onions. He confirmed that they grew only brown onions as there was no market for them to grow red ones. I also enquired what varieties they grew at Cupar as I was interested to see if there was an evolution of varieties since the 1940’s. He said they mainly used Romba and Sturin and named a few other varieties that commercial growers used. He then commented that the varieties of onions you can buy in garden centres and shops are generally older, since the cost of commercial varieties would be too expensive to be sold to the general public.
Richard remarked that onions can often suffer badly from mildew and if a variety of onion could be produced to be resistant to this it would be an important breakthrough to the commercial growers.
I told Richard that I had tried to find out more about the scientific side of commercial onion growing but my attempts had proven futile. I had contacted the Scottish Agricultural College to see if they could enlighten me with anything relating to this but had been surprised to find out that nobody could assist me. Richard responded that to be honest there were currently no amazing advancements and that things had reached a bit of a plateaux. He felt that the main period of change since the 1940s would have been during the 60s and 70s when the the agricultural world witnessed a revolution of traditional methods of farming.
Looking out into the rather empty and desolate looking field, I said that it was amazing to watch the Ministry of Agriculture propaganda films for the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign. Teams of people appeared to very busy and industrious within the Victory Gardens, and prescriptive instructions were shown on the films of the preparation of soils and the cultivation of food plants. Richard agreed that even in his parents’ time that working the land was very much a team effort and that they often talked about potato picking holidays where hoards of people helped out with the harvest. Things had evidently changed since then.
I wondered aloud what a typical day in the life of a Saughton onion Land Girl could have been like? What tasks would they have undertaken? How did they fill a day tending to onions? Did they only grow onions or were there other types of food plants? And what did they do in the winter months?
Richard suggested that perhaps the Land Girls’ work at Saughton was seasonal and that possibly they moved on to other sites. But then giving it further thought he appreciated that there would actually be quite a lot to do with the harvesting and storage of the onions and perhaps this would have been quite time consuming in those days.
The fact that the land girls were reputed to have lived in Saughtonhall Manor suggests to me that there was an endless amount of work for them to do. Nevertheless it is clear that I really need to get to the bottom of what this was.
Richard talked me through the final stages of the onions’ cultivation; the chopping of the leaves; the drying of the bulb’s skins and methods of storage. We then speak again about Tasmania. With its dry and sunny climate, onions can successfully dry out in the field in Tasmania, making it an ideal place for the commercial production of onions. The onions are shipped over to the UK by boat and not by plane.
Richard remembered from my original email I had sent him that I had been interested in the health benefits of onions. I answered that I was aware that they were very good for people but was more concerned to discover whether the onions that had been distributed to the hospitals were supplied for health reasons or simply as a cooking ingredient for meals. He doubted that in the 1940s the health benefits of onions would have been fully understood so it seems unlikely that they would have been grown for anything other than a food resource, albeit a nutritious one. He then added that he did know someone who had studied the health benefits of onions and they had concluded that onions were exceptionally good for you if eaten raw. Like all vegetables nutritional value breaks down when they are cooked. I laughed at the thought of eating raw onions and the social repercussions this would have but then again I eat spring onions in salads so perhaps it was not such an odd proposition.
Walking back to the jeep, I said that I had recently been talking to a fellow artist about onions and that he had reminded me that they had once been used to make invisible ink. I had been familiar with invisible ink as a child but had since forgotten about it. We had also gone on to speculate that perhaps the onions at Saughton had been grown for propaganda purposes only and that they were not actually grown for food, and that perhaps I should make an exhibition of invisible art; a series of drawings made from invisible onion ink. Or perhaps not with the ink, would anybody actually know? Richard laughed and asked if I would get away with that. I answered “Probably not”.
On the subject of invisibility, one thing was evident; I needed to find some Saughton Land Girls to answer many of my questions.
