A sunny summer brought Estonia a bountiful cucumber harvest
A sunny summer has yielded a bountiful harvest for Estonian cucumber growers: this season, more than one million locally grown cucumbers are earmarked for canning. Salvest plans to can 1.3 million cucumbers grown in Estonia, according to ERR News.
At the same time, the season was challenging for greenhouse farms. In the spring, growers had to heat the plants, and on the hottest days, they often had to water them. Kaire Roositalu, owner of the Joosepi farm, explained that greenhouse cucumbers do not grow at temperatures below 15 degrees Celsius, so heating made it possible to achieve a good harvest.
Despite rising prices, shoppers in Estonia prefer local cucumbers. However, producers’ costs for heating, seeds, plant protection products, and growing media are rising, which is reducing farm profitability. Erti Vilu, owner of the Matu farm, noted that growing cucumbers is becoming less profitable every year.
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A good harvest will allow Salvest to reduce cucumber imports from Southern Europe for production. The company’s CEO, Jaanus Aal, said that local produce can go from the field to the jar in a single day, which is an important indicator of quality. For the production of pickled cucumbers this season, Salvest will also use about five metric tons of dill, which is an improvement following last year’s supply issues.
The commercial cucumber season in Estonia runs from July through the end of August. At the Salvest plant, some operations—such as slicing—are performed by machines, but packing the cucumbers into jars remains largely manual labor. Starting next month, the company’s production lines will switch to processing fall vegetables.
