Parsnips... are well under way!

There's always a camera ready and waiting at Elveden...

Below are several photographs and video clips showing the delights of (a fantastic) Parsnip harvest.

The beginning...

The crop is topped, removing any stalks and leaves, as the video below shows, 

 

The harvester then gently lifts the crop, sifting out any soil and then loading parsnips into trailers.

The end....

The trailers then transport the roots to the grader which further cleans and loads them into lorries.

The parsnips are then transported to the packer, where the parsnips are washed and inspected to ensure they are to the correct standard, they are then packed for the supermarket or green grocer.

Below are selection of photographs showing the end product at their very best... Inside the Elveden Estate Farm Shop

All the vegetables and trimmings for your Christmas Dinner...

The final potatoes are lifted at Elveden

550 Hectares (1350 acres) of potatoes are grown at Elveden Farms each year.

These are grown in 3 rows in a stone separated bed.

We start harvesting the crop in July.  The potatoes are then used for the production of crisps, for McCains (McDonalds chips) as well as salad, loose and baking potatoes for many supermarkets.

Handling potatoes from harvesting to the consumer is all about being gentle to ensure potatoes are not cut or bruised.

We harvest the potatoes from stone free soil into trailers which transport them to the grader.

Any remaining soil is removed, small potatoes are graded out and they are inspected for green or misshapen potatoes, as seen above.

The potatoes are then loaded into bulk trailers or boxes for transport to the packer.

Onion Season at Elveden is nearing an end...

We grow around 550 hectares (1350 acres) of onions at Elveden Farms each year which produce up to 25,000 tons of onions.  Four double rows of seeds are sown in stone separated beds. 

When the bulbs have swollen and the tops have died back, the two toppers cut the tops off and the windrower soon follows,  gently lifting the onions and leaving them in one row to dry for a day or so. 

With a target of 1,000 tons each day, the giant (but very manoeuvrable) harvester scoops up the row of onions and removes soil and weeds on their way up the elevator and gently into 18 ton container boxes towed along side.

The video below shows the harvester.

The boxes are transported to the farm store on skeleton trailers where they are lifted by a giant forklift and placed in rows in the store. 

The box number, its weight, the position in the store and the field where the onions grew are all recorded on the computer. The onions are dried, cured and cooled in the boxes in the store until required for sale up to May the next year to supermarkets and processors. Our store at Elveden is called Avenue.

Below are a few more photographs showing some of the onion harvest:

Below are photographs showing the final stages of onion harvest, the tractors dropping the onions off at the store.