Two green-fingered entrepreneurs have set up a vegetable growing business 100 feet underground in old World War Two air raid shelters. Richard Ballard and Steven Dring have been trialling production in tunnels beneath the Northern Line, close to Clapham.
£600,000 is being raised for the project via crowd funding. Michel Roux has been so impressed that he’s joined the company – aptly named Growing Underground – as a director.
There’s surprisingly a lot of space with 2.5 acres available to grow the crops. Temperature remain stable at about 16C whatever time of year. Special low energy LED bulbs ensure production can be maintained for 52 weeks of the year. The underground market garden will employ up to twenty people.
After starting my garden maintenance and landscaping business in 1984 and running it for 21 years I decided I needed a change of direction (probably a mid life crisis, no seriously! :-0) Together with my family, wife Donna, Son Henry and Daughter Fleur (not forgetting Hector the Black Labrador) I moved to France in search of an old farmhouse to renovate. In the interim period whilst waiting for the contract to go through I started writing a blog. Initially just to keep a diary for family and friends to keep up with our progress if they wished but then it occurred to me that there isn’t a real time watcher of the landscape industry in the UK. I didn’t want to waste my experience and experiences so I decided I could put all of this Juice to good use so I started Landscape Juice.
Source: Landscape Juice – Growing Underground Vegetables in Old Air Raid Shelters – Philip Voice
