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The Dutch Horticulture Museum · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr Russell Sharp and today's
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  episode is about a museum that
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  I discovered recently in Holland and
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  it's the Westlands Museum and it's dedicated to
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  the history of the Westlands area but this is a massive greenhouse
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  growing area so most of the exhibits were about
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  growing crops and greenhouse cultivation so i
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  thought i'd share some of the interesting things they
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  have on display there that might be interesting to you both from a
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  hydroponic and a horticultural perspective so this
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  museum is conveniently located near the
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  hook of holland which is the ferry port that
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  i drive into from the uk from harwich
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  in essex but if you're coming from say north
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  america it's easy to get to from amsterdam holland
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  the netherlands is a fairly small country and it's
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  got very good public transport and so
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  it's it's easy to get to and there are lots of other horticultural companies
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  and things to do around this area so that you will often find yourself close
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  to the westlands museum so it's a museum of really of horticultural history
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  so the the area was founded in the roman times and so there's lots of information about the Romans.
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  And then it goes on about how during the Industrial Revolution,
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  which was started in England, in the Midlands of the UK.
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  There was a massive increase in wealth and therefore people demanded fresh vegetables and fresh fruit.
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  And this couldn't be, the demand couldn't be met by the UK.
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  And so they started growing crops outdoors in Holland, things like potatoes and onions.
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  And this also happened in Brittany in France, but the greenhouse industry didn't take off there.
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  And but when we think in
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  the uk of french people we often think of people with
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  onions on their bikes and that's because they used to get the ferry over from
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  britney and sell their onions and then go back these weren't the
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  britney horticulture industry wasn't for the domestic french market
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  it was for the industrial revolution english market and
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  the same in holland it was for the industrial revolution they
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  went from potatoes to things like
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  strawberries and raspberries and they made a lot of jams
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  because obviously those couldn't be transported for long periods
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  of time but a potato can be stored for many many months and jams
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  can be stored for many months so there was lots of jam making and
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  fruit for that and then eventually they
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  got the the technology developed for glass
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  house production and at the
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  museum they've got different stages of
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  glass house so they go so they've got all the
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  different types the very low triangular glass houses
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  to the modern tall glass houses and that's because traditionally people thought
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  oh well if you're heating a glass house then you want a small area to heat when
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  and then they eventually realized through iteration and experimentation that
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  actually you want a large volume
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  because it's easy to keep stable and actually more economical to heat.
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  What I found really interesting was, though, that the initial panes of glass
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  from the very first glass house, they've got a sample there,
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  and it's probably about at least two and a half centimetres thick,
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  so maybe an inch, is that, in American money?
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  So the old greenhouse panes were really thick and green, so they wouldn't have
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  let that much light through, and they would have been really heavy,
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  and if one of those landed on your head, you would be pretty much dead or close to death.
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  So that was really interesting we think of now glasshouse panes have
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  been like three millimeters thick so they have that
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  on display they've got lots of loads of tools and implements that
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  were used in things like soil testing and pest
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  control so they're like big fumigation boxes and things
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  like this one thing that i did see which was really interesting was
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  a wooden box and it was described as earth ray
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  box used for neutralizing negative earth
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  rays to promote the growth of plants i have no
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  idea what that is but yeah some sort of weird box
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  that's also got a compass it would
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  appear on the lid so i have no idea what that
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  was used for but if you've got any ideas i'll say
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  again earth ray box used for neutralizing negative earth
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  rays to promote the growth of plants if you
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  have any idea what that might be then let me know it
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  says on it paverney and i guess that's the
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  name of the company that made it paverney so yeah
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  they also have one of the big auction clocks
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  as i said previously i've been to one of the dutch flower
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  auctions what i didn't realize was that these these auctions were
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  all over the netherlands and there's a really cool one and like wooden a wooden
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  clock that would count down to that from the highest price to lowest price and
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  that that's on display there and they've got the old auction you actually go
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  into the old auction house and then as you go outside there's there's obviously
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  the canals there's one of.
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  And the they've got a display of old forgotten vegetables so things like endive
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  which was on the forced vegetables and and.
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  Other ones have they got the those sort of root vegetables
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  black root vegetables what are they called salsify yeah
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  so and and all sorts of things fennel and not necessarily
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  forgotten but more obscure then they've got there's sort
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  of a frame or lean to greenhouses with
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  lots of grapes in there there's a whole team of volunteers
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  that are really really nice to speak to they've got
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  loads of information a lot of them speak good english and they'll tell you about
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  the history of the place as well if you've got any questions and they they're
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  harvesting all the vegetables and the fruits and you can actually buy the fruits
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  and vegetables in the shop and in the gift shop as well as get a really nice
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  coffee as well so that there's when we were there they were harvesting,
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  potatoes and not like the onions and we're about to
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  be ready and they had the old coal burners because
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  they used to heat the greenhouses with coal and that was
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  really interesting to see they've got a really good display of old promotional
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  posters for the produce that used to go around holland unfortunately only one
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  of those was for sale but some of them were really really really cool and really
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  like art nouveau sort of art deco that's the word i'm looking for,
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  litho litho prints as well things like that so a really interesting museum and
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  they've even got a play attic above the coffee shop where you can take your
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  kids and they can pretend to be.
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  Horticulturalists and grow crops and take them in their boat around the
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  little play area and stuff so it's a really cool museum and
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  especially if you're waiting for a ferry maybe you've been to green tech
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  or one of the other shows in amsterdam and you've got a couple of hours to kill
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  i definitely recommend the westlands museum in holland so hopefully that was
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  of interest and if you've got any questions you can ask me or just email the
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  museum directly definitely want to put on your list if you've not been to it
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  okay thank you very much for listening until tomorrow, that's been Hydroponics Daily.