Archived News

20th February 2010

At Hampton Court Flower Show this year, the Royal Horticultural Society has chosen a ‘home grown’ theme.  Their display will feature a garden, orchard, and traditional hedging and will demonstrate how we can all use our gardens to grow our own fruit and veg, but it will also feature ‘home grown’ farm produce.

We have been asked to grow spring wheat, oats, barley and oil seed rape for this display, ready to be transported to Hampton Court Palace at the end of June.

Work began last week; however the snow, frost and a deluge of rain have hindered progress.  Pallets are placed in rows in the field with a tractor width between them.  As it was half term, Edward helped prepare the pallets with Gillian Van Der Meer who is designing the display for the RHS.

A wooden collar is placed on each pallet; a breathable liner is fixed to the inside and then filled with soil by RVDM Landscaping from Battle, East Sussex.   Seed will be broadcast by hand into a total of 330 pallets. 

In normal circumstances most of these crops would have been sown in fields last autumn and ready to harvest this summer.  For this project we have a tight timescale, but as the sun warms the soil in the pallets the crops should germinate quickly compared to below ground where the soil will be slower to warm.

RVDM Landscaping fill the pallets with soil.