Greenhouse F9-10

Welcome to F9-10

Kalos irthate! You have just scanned the sign at the entrance of greenhouse F9-10, one of the vegetable houses on the eastern side of the farm. Everything growing behind this plastic was sown by our own hands, and it will end up on plates in Crete within a few days of being picked. Take your time here — this page is yours to read at your own pace, and nothing is off limits to look at.

Where you are

F9-10 sits in the middle of the Messara plain, sheltered from the north wind by the hills you can see behind you and warmed by the sun that reaches this valley almost every day of the year. The greenhouse runs north to south so the rows catch light evenly from morning until late afternoon. Under your feet is the same red clay soil our grandparents farmed — we feed it with compost from the farm rather than synthetic fertiliser, which is why the beds look darker near the base of the plants.

Get to know the crop

This house is planted with cucumbers and cherry tomatoes, trained upward on strings so the fruit hangs free and stays clean. A single cucumber plant here can climb well over two metres in a season and produce fruit for months if it is pruned every week. The cherry tomatoes are picked by hand in the early morning, when they are still cool and firm — that is also the moment they taste sweetest, because the sugars made during the day have not yet been spent on overnight growth.

Did you know…

We do not spray this greenhouse to control pests. Instead we release beneficial insects that hunt the ones we do not want — tiny predatory mites and wasps that live quietly among the leaves and do the work for us. It is slower and more expensive than spraying, but it means you can pick a tomato here and eat it straight away, unwashed, exactly as we do.

Can you spot…

Look closely at the leaves and see how many of these you can find: a bumblebee moving between the yellow tomato flowers, a small cardboard sachet hanging from a string, a curled leaf tip, and a green fruit that has only just set behind a flower. Each one tells you something about how this house is working today.

Your challenge

Find the tallest cucumber plant in the row nearest to you and follow its main stem from the soil all the way to the growing tip. Count how many fruits are on it at different stages — from a finger-length baby to one ready to cut. Most visitors guess three or four. Tell us your number when you see us, and if you are close we will let you pick one to take home.

Observe this

Before you walk on, stand still for one minute with your eyes closed. Notice the temperature on your skin, the smell of warm leaves and damp soil, and the sound of the plastic moving above you. This is what the plants experience all day long, and it is the part of farming no photograph ever captures.