Strawberries are being grown underground and vegetables watered by robots – but isn’t it all a bit too perfect?

Last weekend, I spent four hours planting out radishes, lettuce and beans, getting a sore shoulder in the process. In a couple of months I’ll have a glut – and I’ll still love them in spite of their blemishes as they’ve taken so much effort

Would you be happy to eat strawberries grown underground?

This weekend’s warm weather will see sales of strawberries soar. Like asparagus, they are quintessential British seasonal delights. But to satisfy year-round demand, they are now grown in very different conditions to a couple of decades ago.

This year, spectators at the Wimbledon Lawn tennis championships will be able to enjoy strawberries grown in a controlled environment underground, without the benefit of sunlight or showers. In Clapham Common, South London, a sustainable farm has been built in disused tunnels once used as air raid shelters during the Second World War.

Along with strawberries, the farm grows herbs, vegetables and salad leaves hydroponically (feeding nutrients automatically and using LED lighting), and delivers them to top restaurants within the M25 within four hours of being picked. Instead of sitting in straw and compost, the plants rest on bits of carpet. I wonder what they taste like, and if the lack of sun and rain makes any difference.

Last weekend, I spent four hours planting out radishes, lettuce and beans, getting a sore shoulder in the process. In a couple of months I’ll have a glut – and I’ll still love them in spite of their blemishes as they’ve taken so much effort.

These days, the produce we buy in supermarkets is rarely grown in muddy fields. I’m in Kent, and down the road from the farmer I buy asparagus from – picked from beds right by his house – is a huge greenhouse the size of several football pitches. In it are strawberries, tomatoes and salads. Acres and acres of land around the traditional sheep-grazing pastures of Graveney Marshes are now turned over to glasshouses, and near Margate Thanet Earth (the largest glass structure in Europe) is a ghostly sight: acres of peppers and tomatoes are being fed and watered by robots.

Of course this veg comes with little Union Jacks all over the packaging, and yes, it is grown in the UK. But isn’t it all a little too perfect to be truly British?