If you enjoy eating salad or buying a cyclamen to brighten up your sideboard, it is more than likely to have been grown in Sussex.

Ten per cent of all salads, speciality vegetables and bedding plants in the UK are grown in West Sussex.

According to weather ex-perts, the county has all the benefits of a mild micro-climate, with virtually frost-free winters, mild summers and superb light providing ideal growing conditions for tender crops.

Salad crops and bedding plants are worth £150 million a year to the region's economy.

With the aid of high tech-

nology hot houses, growing and packing, the once seasonal activity is now all year round, supplying supermarket shelves and restaurants across the country.

Mark Rose, spokesman for the West Sussex Growers'

Association (WSGA), said: "The county is making the most of its temperate climate, which provides almost perfect growing conditions for salads, mushrooms and bedding plants.

"The brilliant light and mild climate are ideal for this highly competitive market, hence our very strong sectoral concentration."

The salad-growing area lies along the coast from Worthing to the outskirts of Chichester and around Horsham.

Mr Rose said: "There are also advantages in being so close to London and the South-East markets."

The impact on the West Sussex economy is considerable, with more than 500 acres of glasshouse and open-air growing creating more than 2,500 jobs.

Suppliers include Tangmere Airfield, the biggest grower of peppers in the UK; Humber VHB, providing a third of all UK tomatoes; Natures Way, growing £32 million of salad a year and Madestein, which produces 160 million plants.

The industry is making a big capital investment to secure the best in technology and automated production to maximise output.

Needham Growers, has three sites near Arundel, combining production under glass, polytunnels and outside growing space.

It specialises in pot-grown bedding and produced 2.75 million potted plants last year, including 1.5 million for local authorities.

With turnover now approaching £2 million and 30 permanent staff, the company has invested in mechanised production and despatch equipment.

It is planning further expansion to meet new markets.

Finance manager Liz Camping said: "Our business is traditionally seasonal and five years ago, 75 per cent of our sales took place between late April and July.

"Today, we have a much more even spread and our long-term strategy for the company is to expand the growing season with year-round architectural plants including cordylines, osteospermum and erysimums."

Needham Growers belongs to the Farplants Marketing Co-operative, an independent organisation owned by its seven grower members, which distributes to garden centres and major multiple stores nation-wide.

A significant numbers of bedding plants and cut flowers are matched by food plants grown in West Sussex, which can be found on supermarket shelves all over the country.

More than a third of all UK grown tomatoes and spinach, half of all UK peppers, a fifth of all iceberg lettuce, 40 per cent of baby leaf lettuce, and a large percentage of mushrooms are grown in the county.

Mr Rose said: "It is obvious that horticulture is one of the county's top performers.

"But the industry cannot become complacent, as the need to move freshly-cut and prepared produce, supplied swiftly and effectively, is paramount.

"The buying strength of the main supermarkets will demand the highest quality, at competitive prices.

"But overall conditions are right to keep the county's growers as key suppliers to the supermarkets."