A surplus of early strawberries, eggplants, and tomatoes has hit Britain, thanks to the dry, warm weather eliminating the usual "hungry gap," according to growers. It has been a sunny, very dry spring, with the warmest start to May on record, and temperatures are predicted to reach up to 30°C at the earliest point on record, forecasters have said. Nick Haigh, a grower at the Community Farm south of Bristol, mentioned that many of their Mediterranean vegetables have arrived weeks earlier than expected.
"It feels like it's the middle of May already," he said. "We have loads and loads of crops right now—tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, peppers—they are all ready two or three weeks early. We are extremely busy already and feeling the pressure."
Typically, this time of year is known as the "hungry gap," when winter vegetables have run out, and consumers are waiting for the summer crops to arrive. However, the sunny, dry weather has eliminated this gap, he explained.
"A few months ago, we thought it would be the worst hungry gap ever, but now we are saying there isn't going to be a hungry gap. We had really poor harvests last year—we didn't get much squash, for example—so we didn't have the storage vegetables that would usually get us through the hungry gap. Last year was awful; it was completely wet."
Read more at The Guardian