The first three glasshouses being built on the Thanet Earth site in Kent are due for completion in the next two months, with the first salad crops to be planted at the end of November.
Thanet Earth managing director Steve McVickers told freshinfo: “We expect to be planting at the end of November, which should give us production in the second half of February. This is six weeks later than initially planned, but it has been a conscious decision to align our start with our customers’ programmes. They do a winter programme that starts in October and a spring one that starts in April. We won’t make the winter but we will be in time for the spring, and by the start of April we expect to be firing on all cylinders.”
Work is well underway at the UK’s largest-ever glasshouse development on the Isle of Thanet, operated by Fresca Group in partnership with three Dutch glasshouse salad specialists - Red Star Trading for tomatoes, Rainbow Growers Group for peppers and A&A for cucumbers.
The tomato greenhouse is now on the “back third of construction”, said McVickers. “The final kit-out is now on - the combined heat and power (CHP) systems arrived this week,” he said.
“The pepper greenhouse is less than one month behind the tomato one, and the cucumber greenhouse is at about the same point. Essentially, over the next two months we are looking at having the three glasshouses ready,” he added.
The on-site reservoirs are already collecting water and next week the site’s grid connection will be ready, with the electricity sub-station then to be built.
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