Rijk Zwaan Seed Production

Our second stop was to Rijk Zwaan seed production facility. This is where they make seeds, create new varieties, pollinate flowers ect. Rijk Zwaan employees over 2000 people all over the world with 900 employed in Holland.
They have growers in 15 different countries that grow the produce and extract the seed, all the seed is then sent to the main facility here in Holland.
Once the seed reaches holland it goes through many many stages before it can be sold. The facility also researches new varieties, pollination by hand, pellitise the seeds, dry the seeds and also store the seeds.
Some new varieties can take upto 10 years before it is released into the market, with a lot of research and development.
It was really interesting visiting a site where they would actually supply a lot of our grows back in Australia.

FREE DAY

Saturday was a free day for us so to make the most of it we set off at 7 via train to London.
First stop was Notting Hill for the worlds most famous street market the Portobello market as well as the famous 'Blue door'. The markets definitely lived up to their reviews, with sooooo much yummy food.
After we managed to drag ourselves away from here we found our way to Bond street where the real tourists came out.

We eventually found our way to Hyde park where we hired bikes for the day, which was definitely the smartest thing we have done so far. The ride through the park to Buckingham Palace was pleasant.
Continuing on our ride to find Big Ben was a mission with thousands of people every where navigating a bike was a nightmare, so onto the busy London roads we went. We even rode over Tower bridge.
Finally riding to all the tourist destinations we decided we need to get our fluids up, therefore we swapped our bikes for a pub.
It is now 7pm and we have been sightseeing for 12 hours now, it's still not over. We jump on a double decker bus straight to the top where it's open for a guided tour of London. As this finished at 11:30 we jumped back on the underground loop destined for the hotel. What a day!!!

Rijk zwaan Tomato Trials

So the visits begin in Holland first stop was the tomato trials at Rijk Zwaan. The trials are in 16,000 square meters of glass house, 9,000 of these are for tomatoes and 7,000 lettuces.
There are 100 rows of tomatoes which comprises of 82 different varieties. That's right there are actually 82+ different varieties of tomatoes out there.
The centre gets over 2000 visitors from all over the world coming to look and try new tomatoes on the market.
As you can see in one of the photos hygiene was very strict we even wore bags on our shoes, to enter the building you have to put both hands in a disinfectant and push a button with each had to gain entry. As you can see Will doing in the photo.

Vertical wall gardens

Today we set off on a 2hr drive to visit Ball Colegrave, the company behind vertical gardens.

As the title suggests vertical gardens are gardens that grow vertical eg. on walls, frames ect. The system is simple that even the home gardener can have a go. The best plants to use are perennials, herbs and some vegetables.
Ball are currently in the process of producing a newer version of their vertical garden module.
Here are a series of photos about the vertical wall.

Tangmere airfield nursery

Tangmere is a leading European pepper grower, they have been producing peppers for 24 years.
Their nursery in West Sussex covers over 100 acres of crop allowing Tangmeres to provide peppers all year round.

There are several glass houses some were built 24 years ago others more recent. The longest crop line is 160m of peppers nearly double the normal length. They have over 100 staff working all year round to make sure the supermarkets get the best peppers possible.

Hilliers

Today we have two visits booked in the first visit brings us to Hilliers Nursery.
Hilliers is one of the biggest nursery stock and tree production nurseries in Europe. Their latest was supplying the Olympic games with over 9000 mature trees.
Hilliers has been a family business for 140 years, many changes have occurred over these years but Hilliers is still the leader when it comes to nursery and tree stock.
Sir Harold Hillier began the business with an outlook to grow the biggest variety of hardy plants from all over the world. As that venture faded Sir Harold began his own collection of which he donated to the Hampshire County Council when he passed away.

Sir Harold's collection consists of over 42,000 plants from temperate regions, it is the largest collection in the world.

Hilliers has a 50 acre site for their nursery production, over 400 acre site for their trees and a smaller 6 acre site where their mature trees are grown in and ready for dispatch.

Stourhead

Stourhead mansion has been around since the 1700s. We visited stourhead to see the clear water system, whilst we were here we spent over 2 hours walking around these pristine gardens.
These gardens occupy over 2,500 acres along with many old heritage buildings including King Alfred's Tower.
Below are just a few photos of the National Trust Site.