His first farm diversification, into growing asparagus, has just reached its 10th-harvest anniversary.

Mr Morritt, 41, has subsequently turned his hand to growing strawberries and now has 10 acres, with three acres of raspberries and – in a complete change of direction – has recently launched a document storage business.

Back in February 1992, the atmosphere at Low Moor Farm, Sand Hutton, near York, couldn't have been different. Mr Morritt's stepfather took his own life. "It was farming stress," he said.

At 24, he was left with the option of getting out of the industry or taking on the farm tenancy from the landlords, the Church Commissioners.
He chose to plough on – literally. "I just worked all the time, spending day after day on the tractor. There's no doubting I was a miserable devil for a good while," he said.

But four years later, he married Ronda. And the move into asparagus came about as "something to keep her occupied" after she left her job managing a shoe concession in one of York's smartest stores.
"A farming adviser suggested that asparagus would suit our sandy soil," said Mr Morritt.

"The short season – late April to mid-June – was perfect for us, as we'd be finished before the corn needed harvesting."

So, in 1997, the couple took three days to plant their first acre – 9,000 plants, by hand.

Mrs Morritt was pregnant at the time with the first of their two sons.
Part of the mystique of asparagus is that there is more to growing it than planting it one year and harvesting the next. It can take up to five years before sufficient spears are produced.

Mrs Morritt, who started selling those first spears from a picnic table in the farmyard, said: "I washed them by hand and tied them into bunches with string – putting them into a plastic toy box. We were always sold out before lunchtime."

In 2004, following an expansion of the harvested area, the couple were increasingly exhausted by the hand-cutting, washing and grading, so they decided to spend money they had saved for a bigger car on specialist machinery.

With a better return from asparagus than wheat or barley, they have now increased their acreage to 12.

A quarter is sold at the farm gate while the remainder goes direct into hotels and pubs, including the Star Inn at Harome.

They also supply Bettys of Harrogate with asparagus, strawberries and raspberries, and have a good relationship with Bradford-based Delifresh, which sells to the higher end of the catering market.
At the height of the season there are always half a dozen cars waiting in the farmyard to be served.

Mr Morritt said: "It used to be very isolated working on this farm. The asparagus got me off the tractor and meeting people.

"I enjoy showing visitors around – it really has brought new life to the place. If my stepfather could see what we are doing now he'd be amazed."

Through the Harvest Opportunity Permit Scheme (HOPS), the Morritts employ 22 Eastern European workers to help with harvesting between March and October. Mrs Morritt runs the human resources side of the business and prides herself on paying good wages and providing above-average accommodation in static caravans.

"Not only do we feel we owe it to them, it works both ways, as they are all here on the farm.

"If it looks like it's going to be a hot day and we want to get started at 6am it's no problem. It is, however, getting harder to get young agricultural students, because of a combination of government restrictions and more western aspirations."

Her husband laughs at the thought that he used to find five weeks of arable harvest stressful.

"If somebody had told me I'd end up working at such intensity for five months of the year I'd have thought it impossible, but somehow we get through it," he said.

During a rare quiet moment he started thinking about how to utilise a disused 24m x 16m grain store.

"Through Business Link I met a farmer who had gone into document storage and because of our proximity to York – and indeed Leeds and Scarborough, with the A64 so near – it seemed like an idea worth investigating," he said. His brother-in-law, Adam Walker-Jesse, looks after the day-to-day running of the business, called Paperwise, which provides document storage and retrieval, confidential data destruction and the removal of waste office paper.

The cost of insulating the building and fitting it out with the necessary racking and security was eased with grants from the Rural Enterprise Scheme and Yorkshire Agricultural Society's Growing Routes scheme.

"A business paying a big rent in York, for example, doesn't want to be filling that space with filing. We can pick up boxes of documents, bring them back here and index them onto the computer system so they can be easily retrieved – and, of course, deliver them back when needed.

"It made sense, while we were making a journey out to collect documents, to offer a destruction service for files no longer needed and waste-paper collection," said Mr Morritt.

Sand Hutton Asparagus is at Low Moor Farm, Sand Hutton, York. Telephone 01759 371855.

For Paperwise see paperwise.co.uk or call 01347 879142.