Tulip Grower

Tulip Growers

Leading on from last week, the reason I was in Norfolk was because I was shooting a feature on these lovely people at belmont nurseries. We were beating the January blues by bringing a bit of Spring into our lives. Belmont are unique in the fact that they grow all their bulbs aswell as the final blooms.  They don’t use peat by sitting the bulbs in trays of water with added nutrition. So there is less impact on the enviroment.

Their carbon footprint is important to them and they are investing heavily in technology to help improve this. They installed a bio mass boiler running off waste wood products to heat the glass houses. The vast roof area collects a great deal of rain water. The rain water fllows into a resevoir to feed the farms (and neighbouring farm) need for water through out the year.   Fenland, being reclaimed sea bed, 1s high in nutrients sol less fertilser is used.

Mark tricks the bulbs into thinking it is Spring by being cooled then heated up.S oon they start to sprout which is when they are moved into the houses and then in a short space of time. Growing into a  bud  ready to be picked and shipped (within 24hrs) to the shops around the U.K.

Once the Tulip period is over they move onto stocks then it is into the Summer plants. They also grow outside during the warmer months. painting the local landscape with colour. They use all modern technology to keep track of the health of their crop. Mark is able to tell you where each plant comes from to the exact gps figures for each flower. He uses a drone to look at his fields from above to measure growth, health etc.

Their Website:

http://belmontnurseries.co.uk/