Hong Dao and Hetao Farms

Our first property was at Hong Dao (Red Island). Hong Dao is a peninsula which juts out into Qingdao Bay. It has excellent communications, including the new international airport at Qingdao, developed for the Beijing Olympics 2008, during which Qingdao will host the Sailing events.

Our first step was to import Strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant, redcurrant, blackberry and boysenberry plants from the UK and USA as our nuclear stock. It quickly became apparent that we were dealing with a more demanding climate than first thought. Qingdao lies around 36 degrees North, a similar latitude to Gibraltar in Europe and Monterey in California. However any idea that similar climactic conditions would prevail were quickly dashed. Qingdao receives a short but very sharp winter which is much the driest time of the year. Cold winds from Siberia have a severely dessicating effect on caneberries of all types. July and August are the rainy months, and can bring their own problems such as waterlogged fields and root death.

Even in this challenging environment some of our varieties were found to thrive and we were able to establish another organic farm at Hetao, very close to Hong Dao. To this day the Hetao farm produces organic Totem strawberries.

We quickly realised that being able to offer a complete service - from growing to final packing - would be a great strength, and set about looking for a focal processing facility around which to expand our planting programme.