0:00:28 > 0:00:31'Today, I'm in County Down to meet up
0:00:31 > 0:00:34'with organic farmer John McCormick.'
0:00:34 > 0:00:36- How are you? - I'm very well, thank you.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40- It's perfect weather for the old garden, isn't it?- Beautiful.
0:00:40 > 0:00:41Beautiful day.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44'John is passionate about growing organic food,
0:00:44 > 0:00:46'locally produced and completely dependent
0:00:46 > 0:00:48'on our Northern Irish climate.'
0:00:50 > 0:00:54John, here we are, your field of tunnels, different veg in every one?
0:00:54 > 0:00:57That's right. This is a row of four of our larger tunnels
0:00:57 > 0:01:01and we'd have a four-year rotation going on between the four of them.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04You see some kohlrabi in there, that was carrots in there first
0:01:04 > 0:01:07and now it's kohlrabi and then it will be salad.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10So different veg planted throughout the year?
0:01:10 > 0:01:12At least three crops per tunnel.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15John, a nice big tunnel here of cherry tomatoes.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18They've done well with our weather this year.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21Yes, I'm very pleased with them, they're called Sakura.
0:01:21 > 0:01:22They're a very sweet tomato,
0:01:22 > 0:01:26so would be incredibly popular with children, as you can well imagine.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29And you have got your normal amount of crops for this year?
0:01:31 > 0:01:34Yes, by and large, the cropping would appear to be good,
0:01:34 > 0:01:36where we normally go for seven or eight trusses,
0:01:36 > 0:01:39this is a truss, they start at the bottom and, you know,
0:01:39 > 0:01:42work right up to the last truss at the top.
0:01:42 > 0:01:43This would be the eighth truss on this,
0:01:43 > 0:01:45but they're actually doing very well.
0:01:45 > 0:01:47Very well, so another few weeks left
0:01:47 > 0:01:49and these boys here will be ready to pick.
0:01:49 > 0:01:51Five, six weeks before I start taking them out.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56'Food is a requirement for all life
0:01:56 > 0:01:59'but we need the right weather to grow it.'
0:01:59 > 0:02:02What can you do here that you can't in the west?
0:02:02 > 0:02:04I suppose we're blessed, in the sense that
0:02:04 > 0:02:06if you want to be a vegetable grower, certainly,
0:02:06 > 0:02:08you're far better off over here on the east coast
0:02:08 > 0:02:10than you ever would be on the west coast.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14We can just about grow everything, except bananas and citrus.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17What I have noticed is we seem to be getting extremes.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20We're breaking records, left, right and centre -
0:02:20 > 0:02:23we're getting the hottest days that have ever happened in the year,
0:02:23 > 0:02:26we're getting the wettest days that have ever happened in the year.
0:02:29 > 0:02:30These nets, John,
0:02:30 > 0:02:33do a good job protecting against pests and rabbits,
0:02:33 > 0:02:36that kind of thing, but they also protect against our bad weather.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39That's right, we're finding, increasingly,
0:02:39 > 0:02:43that in the summertime, we're getting very, very heavy rainfall
0:02:43 > 0:02:44and the result of that
0:02:44 > 0:02:46is it splashes the mud back up all over the lettuce
0:02:46 > 0:02:50and makes it unsellable, so the nets act as a barrier,
0:02:50 > 0:02:52so when the rain hits that, it diffuses,
0:02:52 > 0:02:53and you don't get that splash.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09You also keep bees here. How has the weather affected them?
0:03:09 > 0:03:142015 has not been one of the great bee years.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18We had a cold May, which wouldn't have been nice for the bees,
0:03:18 > 0:03:20but they were busy enough and survived it
0:03:20 > 0:03:23and managed to build up to a decent brood size for June
0:03:23 > 0:03:26and then we had a nice June, we had a good June,
0:03:26 > 0:03:30so the bees were very busy in June and there was plenty of nectar
0:03:30 > 0:03:33and pollen around and they started to bring in a lot of reserves.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37But then July turned wet and by the end of August, because we had
0:03:37 > 0:03:41another wet August, they had already started to eat into those reserves.
0:03:41 > 0:03:43There can be up to 50,000 or 60,000 bees in a colony.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45And they all need to be fed every day
0:03:45 > 0:03:48and if they can't get out to feed, they will eat their reserves.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51So we won't be taking much honey off the bees this year,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54simply because we want to leave them with the reserves that are there.