3x5 - Grow-Dome

February 4, 2009

This week at Newhouse Farm we go a bit space-age. Taking delivery of a geodesic dome and setting up a new organic hydroponic system. The dome is the first of its kind for domestic use in the UK but the design concept itself has been around for about 100 years. New domes and information are available from Grow-Dome. Most famously on show at the Eden project in Cornwall it was our chosen sustainable structure for growing more food at home. Read more here. It’s important to stress that for people interested in growing outside there are other cheaper options ranging from getting really lucky on Freecycle with a greenhouse, to buying a polytunnel in the classifieds (which proved well worthwhile here on the farm!), or building your own cloches out of rubbish. Cloches are essentially mini green houses that cover vegetables in order to start them early, protect seedlings or accelerate growth rates. The simplest DIY version has to be a plastic bottle with the bottom chopped off and then placed over a seedling. We have also found old scrap windows are great for building cloches. Happy growing…