Simon Beasley has recently joined A Boxall & Son part of Well-Pict European group as our Farm Manager at Griffins Farm, East Sutton in Kent.  Simon graduated from Greenwich University in 2001 with a degree in commercial horticulture.  Simon has valuable experience of growing a range of crops under protection from Poinsettias to strawberries, although his real passion is fruit production. 

The farm grows 2 commercial strawberry varieties Elsanta and the everbearer Evie 2.  Production is split roughly 50/50 between these 2 varieties.  There are also plans to grow some new trial varieties.  Just under half of the production area is covered with Portuguese tunnels that house the majority of the Evie 2 in a suspended pot and pipe system while the rest of the production is in peat bags on table tops under Spanish tunnels.  The Priva irrigation computer controls 2 interchangeable water systems supplying accurate fertigation to the entire crop.     

“We are lucky to have such a modern and high tech growing system to work with here and through careful management we aim to produce around 140 tonnes this season, which will surpass all previous yields for this site” Simon goes on to say that “I’m very pleased to be working for a company such as Wellpict, I’m confident that with their support this project will be a great success”.

Katarzyna Pych also joins A Boxall & Son as Griffins farm supervisor.  Katia has worked on the farm for the past 3 years and is a valuable asset to the team.