VEGETABLES GROWN UNDER CLOCHES

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26856, 8 October 1952, Page 12

VEGETABLES GROWN UNDER CLOCHES

TALK BY MR BARNETT By using cloches home gardeners could provide early vegetables when they were scarce, during the months of October, November, and the first two weeks of December, but good results could not be expected from poor cultivation and unfertile soil, said Mr M. J. Barnett, when speaking to members of the Canterbury Cloche Growers’ Circle. “Whether grown in the open or under glass, plants must have air, moisture, and the right degree of temperature if they are to thrive,” he said. It was doubtful if cloche growers could compete commercially with growers in the milder climates of the north or with growers in the warm, well-drained valleys in parts of Christchurch, but for the amateur who enjoyed gardening throughout the year cloche-growing provided an interest and supplied green- vegetables when they were in short supply, said Mr Barnett. In Christchurch the water table was fairly high and soil temperatures became very cold in the winter; unless soil was well-drained a cloche would have little effect on the plants. “To be successful even with cloches over your plants you must prepare the soil, give it natural or artificial manures and dram it well,” he added. Purposes of the cloche were to give warmth and protection to plants, which under normal conditions would suffer during the winter and early spring months, and to accelerate growth in plants, which would otherwise remain dormant during the winter. As a commercial proposition cloches were first introduced in Britain about 1904, Mr Barnett said. Before this French growers had supplied the markets of Covent Garden with spring vegetables about three weeks earlier than the British growers, so a party of market gardeners from England went to France to study methods of growing early vegetables. In France they found that vegetables grown under bell glasses, known as cloches there, were ready for the market much sooner than those grown in the open. When adopted in England cloche-growing became a successful commercial venture, though this method was not used by commercial growers m New Zealand. The modern cloche, which was developed from the bell-glass, was lighter, more easily handled, and less said enSIVE than itS P rede cessor, he