There is still a fair bit of 2026 left to run, so perhaps writing something that looks back on the year while we’re still only in late September is tempting fate. And given how the year has gone so far, that may be particularly unwise.
But, as we head into autumn, there’s enough behind us to know that 2026 is a year we will remember, and not always for good reasons.
We started the year supplying veg boxes to a little over 100 families. We are now supplying more than 250. That still catches us slightly by surprise when we stop and think about it.
Growth sounds great when you put it into a business plan. In reality, it means needing more land, more greenhouse space, more crops, more people, more packing space, more vehicles and considerably more hours in the day than the standard allocation of 24.
We took on the additional land and greenhouse space this year, which was badly needed, but all of it required serious remediation before we could make proper use of it. Bringing tired ground back into production isn’t particularly glamorous. There is a lot of clearing, repairing, wheeling barrows of compost, feeding the soil, fixing deep-down things that somebody else stopped caring about years ago and spending money on things that nobody will ever notice but that our growing crops will be the better for.
Some of that work is already paying us back. Some won’t do so until next year or the year after. Hard-worked soil takes time to recover, but recover it will.
While we were trying to expand the farm, Mother Nature was busily conducting an experiment of her own with extreme summer temperatures and rainless weeks, leading into rainless months. An old and very wise grower recently confided that, in his opinion, this would qualify as the most contrary growing year Fingal’s farmers have faced in living memory.
The summer was exceptionally hot and, for prolonged periods, water became a real concern. Irrigating the field, tunnels and greenhouses required a constant juggling act as our reserves dropped. There were trips to greenhouses at night to switch on water; there were sprinklers moved at ungodly hours. Even plants that supposedly love heat began to struggle with it.
Our brassicas wilted, our onions failed to grow to a decent size and our tomatoes suffered some blossom end rot. Thankfully, not enough to seriously damage all of the crops, but enough to remind us that when we say “tomatoes love heat”, it comes with quite a few qualifications.
On the other hand, tomatoes provided one of the real successes of the year.
We experimented more with beefheart types and were genuinely taken aback by the reaction from customers. People didn’t just like them; they talked about the taste. Properly ripe, freshly harvested beefheart tomatoes have a flavour and texture that is difficult to compare with the standard tomato most of us have become accustomed to buying.
Another success story was peppers, a crop that doesn’t do particularly well in Ireland, even in the hottest years. The exception for us this year was our small planting of Padron peppers. Abundant and with a long cropping season, they were also universally liked by our customers. Along with beefheart tomatoes, they will be another crop that we will plant more of for 2027.
The strange weather has also given us something else. We are pushing crops later into the year than we ever have before.
Here we are in late September, still harvesting beautiful basil that looks capable of carrying on for another month. The courgettes are still producing really well. So are the beans, and again they look like they will continue long enough to warrant later sowings next year.
Perhaps we’re not so many years away from having fresh Irish beans for our Christmas boxes. And the change in climate has prompted us to add a small selection of melons to our seed order for 2027. Optimistic? Perhaps, but we like to trial a few new things every year, so why not melons?
Of course, there’s an uncomfortable conversation encompassed in all of that.
A changing climate may allow us to grow certain crops for longer, or perhaps eventually grow things commercially in Ireland that would once have been marginal. There will be opportunities amongst the changes and, as growers, we have to recognise and learn from them.
That isn’t an argument in favour of climate change. The negatives are a hell of a counterbalance to any benefit we might find. Water scarcity, extreme heat, unpredictable seasons and crops under stress are already part of our working lives. It is up to us as farmers to find new ways to cope with change.
But the world is negative enough at times. If October or even November basil & beans are one small positive amongst all that, we’ll take it.
The heat in July and August also changed how we worked this year.
On the hottest days, the farm crew were starting as early as 4am, getting the heavy work done while temperatures were still manageable. There was compensation in the form of an early finish, which made those starts considerably more civilised.
At least it did for the staff.
One of the minor defects in self-employment is that nobody appears at lunchtime and tells you that you’ve done your hours and can go home. Dave and Ber discovered that the much-promised early finishes had an irritating habit of not materialising, and so their days just became longer. Perhaps as well as incorporating new crops in our rotations, we may need to incorporate some European traditions. Siesta, anyone?
2026 also taught us something about the unreliability of (working or otherwise) vehicles.
We bought two delivery vehicles at considerable cost.
Both broke down.
Almost simultaneously.
One has an issue that, at the time of writing, remains something of a mystery. The other has a crankshaft problem. Both are still sitting in garages while we continue our deliveries in an elderly borrowed van that quietly gets on with the job and is outperforming both of our shiny new purchases.
There is probably a lesson in there somewhere about old and reliable sometimes beating new and shiny.
We are increasingly inclined to think that applies to people as well as machinery.
There have been more serious reminders this year of why we started Bare Acre Farm in the first place.
We continue to see farmers and growers leaving the business. At the same time, we are seeing Irish supermarkets employ ever more inventive ways of dressing up imported produce so that a hurried customer could reasonably believe they are buying something Irish.
That frustrates us.
It also makes us more convinced that the model we are trying to build is worthwhile.
We grow food for a community of people. What we cannot grow ourselves, we buy directly from other local growers wherever possible. It isn’t the easiest way to sell vegetables and it probably never will be. But as the number of growers declines, the connection between the person growing food and the person eating it becomes more important, not less.
Two hundred and fifty families buying from us every week won’t change Irish agriculture.
But it matters to this farm. It matters to the growers we buy from. And we hope it matters to the 250+ families who now know a little more about where their food came from.
There were a few occasions this year when the farm had to manage without one of its allegedly reliable components, proof, if it were needed, that when push comes to shove, no one is indispensable.
Dave managed two trips to hospital early in the year, both of which ended with stays in ICU. His troublesome gallbladder has stubbornly resisted various attempts to persuade it to behave. Its intransigence has left him, at times, lacking in his usual energy, so it’s been a rough year for him. However, there is hopefully an end in sight, with surgery scheduled for October to finally remove it.
Apparently, recovery afterwards takes somewhere in the region of six to eight weeks.
Anyone who knows Dave will immediately recognise the potential difficulty with this arrangement.
Ber certainly does.
How well a self-employed farmer who struggles with the concept of an early finish is going to cope with six to eight weeks of recovery remains to be seen. We are not taking bets.
Away from farming and business, 2026 has carried some much bigger moments for us.
Ber and Dave are approaching their 40th wedding anniversary, which is either a considerable achievement or evidence of remarkable stubbornness on both sides. Probably a bit of each.
But our biggest joy of this year is as always our children. Adam & his lovely partner continue to grow in independence and are living their own lives on the other side of the city, and then there is Rou!
2026 began as her thirteenth year as our foster child. She will end it as our legally adopted daughter.
There are some things that don’t need dressing up with clever words. This is one of them.
We are simply delighted.
The year also brought one of those losses that people who have animals will understand immediately.
We lost Roxy, our little Yorkie, after more than 14 years as part of our family.
She was tiny, opinionated and a constant presence in our lives. Her absence has been felt not just by us but by Levi, our 13-year-old lurcher.
The two of them were an unlikely pair, but Roxy was very much Levi’s vavavoom. Since losing her, he has seemed bereft and lonely, and at his age we find ourselves wondering how long he’ll carry on without his little buddy beside him.
That’s the difficult bargain we make when animals become part of a family. Fourteen years is a long time, until suddenly it isn’t.
So, what do you make of a year like this? And what can we expect from the final three months?
Maybe this blog post will need an epilogue.
Dave Kavanagh
September 22nd 2026
