Mr Fothergill's online trial ground tour

Mr Fothergill’s has teamed up with the Garden Channel and the Allotment Channel to offer a really useful range of video growing guides on its website www.mr-fothergills.co.uk - click the ‘New Video Growing Guides’ link on the homepage or on the image below to go direct to the video. The company believes it is the online version of gardeners swapping advice over the fence or learning from experienced growers down on the allotment. Subjects covered include chitting potatoes, storing onions and tips on growing tomatoes. While it was in the process of producing the short films, Mr Fothergill’s discovered a home-grown talent in the shape of Pim Dickson, who had not appeared in front of a television camera before.

In the ‘About Us’ section Pim takes viewers on a tour of Mr Fothergill’s Kentford, Suffolk, trial ground, explaining its uses to the company and its customers. While the trial ground is an attractive feature, especially when flowers are in full bloom through the summer, it is not open to the public, as it is very much a ‘working trial’. The five minute presentation therefore gives gardeners an interesting look ‘behind the scenes’. Mr Fothergill’s believes this is the first time a seed company has given gardeners the chance to view its trial ground from the comfort of their own home.

The company is also pleased to be able to offer gardeners a special preview of some of its new varieties before they are grown in Britain’s gardens for the first time in 2012. Included in the preview are Marigold Kees Orange and Rudbeckia Aries – both of which are ‘exclusives’ – and Petunia Rapide Mix F1. Trialling and assessing new varieties is an important part of the work of the horticultural team at Mr Fothergill’s.

Pim explains around 1,500 seed lots are tested annually on the site and are given scores by the company’s horticultural experts, pointing out all the plants are grown just as gardeners would grow them at home. They are given no special treatments to encourage them to improve their performances. Pointing to mildew on some courgette plants, Pim mentions the trial is also one of pest and disease resistance as plants are given no form of protections against such scourges. Particular note is made of resistant strains of vegetables and flowers.

Crops such as tomatoes, peppers, melons and aubergines are grown both in a polytunnel, to replicate a home greenhouse, and outdoors without protection so a variety’s performance can be compared in the two different environments. Pim remarks that peppers grown outdoors this summer (2011) performed particularly well and  were on a par with those grown in the polytunnel. “The trial ground is a very important tool in our quality assurance programme”, he says, “because it gives gardeners the reassurance they seek that our seeds will do well for them”.