VETERAN market gardeners from the Tamar Valley gathered at Cotehele House last Friday, for an event celebrating the rich history of market gardening.
An invited audience of market gardeners across the generations shared their memories and heard a talk about the historic, economic and social importance of the industry on both sides of the River Tamar.
The focus of the event was a talk by Mike Pollock from the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley and formerly the district horticulture officer at Ellbridge experimental station, which covered the Tamar Valley area.
Mr Pollock paid tribute to the achievements of the market gardeners.
He said: 'The soil in the Tamar Valley was pretty thin. It was always a battle to keep finding supplies of organic matter.
'It still remains pretty remarkable to me, how well we grew crops without much soil fertility.'
Freda Brown, from St Dominick, was among the audience at Cotehele House.
She worked with her husband George in the steep hills near Cotehele, where they produced strawberries, spring flowers and lettuces.
'It was very hard work, but we used to love it,' she said.
Mrs Brown said the gardeners worked long, diligent hours.
She recalled traders from Plymouth market coming to the plots, and even though it would be getting late, she would keep on saying to them 'just one more box of strawberries'.
'I have never regretted a moment of it,' she said, despite the steepness of the hills they worked.
'We didn't get backache on the hill because you weren't bending over all the time like you would on flat ground,' she explained.
Norman Grills of Bere Ferrers was another of the skilled market gardeners of the past at the event.
Like his father, he began growing raspberries and later experimented with strawberries.
Mr Grills said: 'In 1950, we started a 12-month raspberry trial with the Ministry. We were growing eight different types in four different plots. Seven were given names and sold commercially.'
Mr Grills said Friday's event brought back memories of his time as a gardener in Bere Ferrers.
The audience heard the story of market gardening recounted from its origins in the mid 19th Century in former mining areas, through to the present day.
One early pioneer of the industry sent the only outdoor grown English strawberries to market at Covent Garden in 1863, where they sold well.
Strawberry-growing was such a success that at the peak of market growing in the region, it was estimated 300 tonnes of strawberries were being produced in the valley.
As well as strawberries, other produce was soon being grown in the Tamar Valley and sold at markets, including black cherries, raspberries, gooseberries, winter lettuce and daffodils.
At the industry's height, there were around 15,000 producers growing various crops.
By the mid-60s, this had fallen to around 160 registered growers.
Today, there are as few as 25 producers working land in the Tamar Valley commercially.
The event at Cotehele was staged by the Market Gardening in the Tamar Valley Project, a partnership between the Tamar Valley Services and the Calstock Development Trust, and funded by the Local History Initiative and the Nationwide Building Society.
Tim Selman, manager of Tamar Valley Services, said the gathering was 'a celebration of the remarkable story of market gardening and its role in the landscape and culture of the Tamar Valley.'
Mr Selman said the project also aimed to produce an archive of material from people with firsthand experience of working in the valley's market gardening industry.
A second event celebrating the history of market gardening took place at Tavistock Farmers Market last Saturday, when a team from the Tamar Valley project sold daffodils in Bedford Square in the traditional way and were on hand to answer questions about the project.