They call me Mr Boombastic

I’m going be boastful here and say I’m quite good at snooker. My highest break is 91 and my win percentage for the Liss RBL C team is decent.

But it turns out I’m pretty good at a different kind of potting – the one that involves putting cuttings in growbags. Certainly one of the fastest on the team, too.

Before I tell you about my potting prowess in the barn, I’ll take you back a few months to the polytunnels and how the growing process begins.

Strawberry plants produce offshoots called runners (see the picture). This is an effectively an umbilical cord which would take hold in the soil, but because the plants are elevated and there is no soil to delve into, the runners grow below the racks and towards the ground, three feet below.

The packhouse team and I were sent to Ford over a series of afternoons in July to cut these runners and thus begin a fresh growing process. Snips are made on the stem around two centimetres above the leafy offshoot to create a hook. The cuttings, which should ideally have three leafs with strong stems, are then placed into boxes containing damp hessian cloth to keep them hydrated, and taken to an empty glasshouse at Redhill for planting.

During the summer the team gathered around 30,000 strawberry runners – a huge number which should provide a bountiful crop next year.

The team are then tasked with planting, or hooking, all the runners into black trays containing 50 square of compost. The trays are then placed on the floor in straight rows and are watered every 15 minutes by the sprinklers, which mercifully don’t come on during planting sessions.

Having said that, sometimes they do and that’s not necessarily a bad thing during the summer, where the temperature in the glasshouses can exceed 40c. A couple of male workers who we nicknamed Bill and Ted occasionally worked semi naked in these conditions and made the most of the shower breaks.

The plants grow substantially after two weeks on the glasshouse floor but their stay is a temporary one. Each plant is then pruned to leave three strong leaves, with weaker, dry or dead ones being removed. The trimmed plants are returned to their square hole, with completed trays being placed on the back of a massive trailer and driven to a spot close to another glasshouse, where a sprinkler system will keep them watered over the coming months.

The majority of the plants are taken to Ford where they are planted in either square pots – four cuttings fit in a pot, one in each corner – or grow bags.

Turns out I’m a natural at taking the cuttings out of trays and planting them into growbags, with the operation taking place over a couple of weeks in a large barn.

The process is akin to a factory production line, with grow bags at one end and planters at the other. The grow bags are stiff at first and need to me squishened, so throwing them onto the trailer and beating the crap out of them is great for relieving any stress. Two pickers – a Mr Boombastic-loving Turk called Aldin and the gentle Bulgarian worker, Stanimir – drill small and large holes, respectively, for the drips and plants, before bags are moved down to the line by Aldin’s son, Octay, to a trailer for the planters to fill.

Although I start out drilling – working with power tools is always fun – I move to the planting end and quickly become one of the fastest. The grow bags all on a massive trailer and are pulled by a tractor to an open space next to a polytunnel, where they are hooked up to the irrigation system.

The atmosphere was always fun and jovial in the barn with the radio usually playing, with a weekend of dance by Radio 1 being a highlight. I would like to apologise to the pickers for screeching along to Ride on Time.

I mentioned Mr Boombastic earlier. Aldin, Konstantine and a few other of the migrants love a cover of the Shaggy classic by a Romanian artist called Romeo Fantastik (pictured) whereas I am au fait with the early 90s chart topping Levis-selling single.

So there’s barely a day where I’m not prompted by Aldin into singing the chorus of Mr Boombastic and doing a little dance, gyrating to the ‘Mr Lover Lover’ or ‘Ro, Ro, Romantic’ bits.

Indeed, I seem to have garnered a reputation as a bit of a party loving disco king, as I often shout out “disco disco disco disco, whoop whoop” in a 2 Unlimited stylee and play party tunes during the odd group task. I hope I haven’t haunted one of the pickers by dancing to Uptown Funk.