Project Herberg de Smidse

Our new vegetable garden is situated in Epen, in the heart of South-Limburg, the Netherlands. Yvo Creuse is the chef of Herberg de Smidse and he came to us with the desire of serving his guests vegetables grown on his own ground. Space wasn’t the issue, but especially in the first year knowledge and time investment play important roles. Therefore we work together. This Aptus garden is a collaboration between Aptus Plant Tech, Hotel de Smidse and Groene Start. Aptus organizes and delivers knowledge, planning and plant nutrition. Groene Start delivers all the seeds, growing knowledge and manpower. De Smidse pays the small costs and can use all the yields out of the garden. With almost 400 square meters he can make hundreds of meals with superfresh vegetables. He can use it, because between march and september Epen welcomes a million guests from all over the world, enjoying the beautiful environment.

Until night frost is definitely over, we’re building and filling up the wooden crates, applying Aptus All-in-One pellets and planting our first crops: rhubarb, radish, lettuce and some herbs. After seeding we’ve just watered with Believerpack, consisting of Aptus Regulator and Aptus Startbooster. Half of the work is already done! Now it’s only a matter of maintaining, which means looking after your plants and their environment. Plants are just like humans, they need attention.
These pictures were taken 1 week after seeding.

After the crates are filled, we’ll make the open soil ready for its very first year of being a food-producing ground. The root cloth is to hold back the growing of unwanted weeds for now. To measure and analyse the difference in quality and quantity, we divide our testing gardens into treated and untreated sections. On each side we grow the same crops. Other growing conditions remain entirely the same during the whole season. In our testing gardens we use All-in-One pellet and Believerpack to show the difference in quality and quantity between treated and untreated crops. We will be updating you all season on our green achievements.

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