This Week On Movie Monday
By 1943, food imports had slumped to their lowest levels during the war, and farmland was becoming tired after years of consecutive use. To combat this, Ruth creates fertiliser with dung and spare straw from the farm’s cereal production, while Alex employs a specialist rat catcher to stop rodents eating into the upcoming harvest. Later in the episode, Alex and Peter build a straw-bale outhouse for visitors and evacuees, complete with a thatched nettle roof; harvest grass from the local churchyard to make hay for their dairy herd; and start their own bee-keeping concern.
Ruth, desperate for helping hands, takes up a new initiative from the Ministry of Labour to employ children on the farm. They camp in the woods nearby, and pick herbs and medicinal plants like goose grass and foxglove which can be sold on to Britain’s pharmaceutical industry. She prepares sandwiches for them using steamed tinned salmon from Canada, and organises entertainment from a local folk musician (including the wartime favourite Run Rabbit Run).