Tomatoes that thrive in endless summer

Feature on Cornerways Nursery, which produces many different types of tomatoes. Picture: Matthew Usher. (Image: © Archant Norfolk 2014)

The towering silos of the Wissington sugar factory dominate the skyline near Downham Market but its neighbour is a far more arresting sight from the air.

Tucked away from the road, down tracks that buzz with activity, is the UK's largest greenhouse. Bigger than 18 football pitches put together and housing more tomato plants than anywhere else in the country, it's Stoke Ferry's secret tropical tomato forest.

'When it's cold outside, I like to come into the greenhouses before I go to my office,' said Cornerways' general manager, Patrick Harte.

'It's like the feeling you get when you step off an aeroplane into a warm country. Whatever the weather's like outside, it's always summer in the greenhouses.'

For as far as the eye can see, there are tomato plants. Eleven commercial varieties are grown here in the Fens with a further 10 or so trial plants that may or may not make it to a grander scale of production depending on their flavour.

Plants are attached to wires that run across the ceiling of the glasshouse and which are constantly twisted and re-clipped to make sure that tomatoes grow evenly and in the right place for the team (which peaks at 380 pickers in high season) to pluck the fruit from the stalks.

'We take a plant in early December that is about 30cm high and grow it until the end of November when it's about as large as you can see now – about 36ft long,' said Mr Harte.

'The plants are looked after by hand – the leaves need to be removed at lower levels, the plant has to be twisted on the stem, shoots need to be removed and they must be moved along the string. The people who work here are highly skilled and some can tend hundreds of plants a week.

'All the produce we have is packed on-site which minimises the amount of handling and means that our tomatoes can be on the shelves within hours of being picked. It means the flavour will be far superior to tomatoes that have had to travel from abroad.'

Of the tomatoes sold in the UK, 80 per cent are imported and 20 per cent are British-grown. Cornerways supplies around 10 per cent of the 20, meaning it supplies two per cent of the overall market.

'It's not an exaggeration to say that our tomatoes are unbeatable for flavour because we have the luxury of being able to pick them right on the point of perfection,' said Mr Harte.

'Nurseries that are sending their tomatoes from another country to the UK have to pick them before the es.

'The bees are the hardest workers in the nursery,' laughed Mr Harte.

'They can pollinate 10,000 flowers a day, which is essential to us. There's no nectar in the flowers so we feed them a glucose solution in their hives – like a wage!'

Despite being surrounded by tomatoes every single day, Mr Harte says his love of the salad favourite hasn't diminished and that he still finds it impossible to pass his favourite variety – piccolo – without sampling one from the vine.

'For me, it just edges it for flavour and bite. For me, a tomato needs to look good and have a really good sugar/acid balance. Sometimes, they can be a bit too sweet for me,' he said.

'The only time of the year when I think 'enough is enough' when it comes to tomatoes is when we try the ones that we're thinking of trialling. I had to try 400 or so different tomatoes, once and some of them really aren't great!

'Tomatoes we have on trial this year include the tiger tomato, which is striped, brown beef tomatoes, orange baby plums and yellow cherry. Next year, I think we might trial up to about 25 different varieties because they're becoming more sought after.

'We've even got one called Lemonade which tastes a bit fizzy. People might think that all tomatoes taste the same, but they really don't – that's what makes our job exciting. It's a bit like being a tomato sommelier!'