Melon and aubergine success in hot summer experiment

Watermelons and aubergines are not crops you might traditionally spot being grown in the UK, but an experiment this summer found them to be performing well in the unusually persistent warm weather.

The exotic fruits were successfully grown at Asthall Manor, near Burford, Oxfordshire, as part of a scheme to boost food resilience in the face of climate change.

The seed experiment coincided with the UK's hottest summer on record - making conditions more appropriate for growing the tropical crops.

Tim Mitchell, who runs the wildlife-friendly kitchen garden at Asthall Manor, said the project aimed to see whether "outdoor-friendly varieties" could now be grown at scale in the UK.

"This year we've had a go at growing watermelons, melons, and aubergines all outdoors - which is not traditionally done in the UK," he explained.

"We weren't even sure it was going to work, but sure enough we had a long hot summer which did allow us to grow these heat-loving crops."

The Crowd Breeding Project is a scheme led by the Gaia Foundation, an international charity which aims to protect and build biodiversity.

Mitchell explained that the scheme was about "building more resilience into our food system in the UK".

"Currently a lot of crops that are grown are very limited in their variety... they're all genetically quite closely related and they're all vulnerable to the same pressures," he said.

"So for instance in a heat drought if they're all very closely genetically related, your entire crop could fail."

As part of the scheme, Mitchell grew different varieties of various tropical crops next to one another.

"Part of the principle that we're working to is to breed genetic diversity into these crops by letting varieties cross through natural cross pollination," he said.

"That means you're growing a diverse flock, and that gives them more genetic breadth to adapt to the changing seasons."

"It's very important that we adapt our crops in this country, not just to increasingly hot summers but potentially to increasingly wet summers. The way you allow crops to adapt is to let them cross with each other and become genetically diverse."

At the moment, Mitchell said many traditional British crops were "not getting the seasons they need" due to changing weather patterns.

"Out of this project, we hope to find new, more resilient, naturally occurring crops," he added.