What all do you grow? Is it all for your own use, or do you sell some of it?
The two houses are each 30 feet by 96 feet. We grow decorative and ornamentals, for the most part, all for sale. My partner owns a farm market, and for the first few years we bought all the plants from other growers to sell. We've slowly been growing more and more of our own product. We started by growing fall mums in pots, and now we can supply the market's full seasonal quota, about 5,000, on our own. When we finished the first greenhouse last spring, we only grew the late spring supply of annual flats because we didn't have the heaters installed yet. But now we do, and this year we're growing all kinds of annual bedding plants and several varieties of floral hanging baskets, all to sell at the market. Right now we have 500 flats of pansies and about 1,000 potted perennials (hostas, astilbe, etc.) getting ready to kick off the season in early march.
Here's a couple pictures of the market in the spring:
In the fall it's mums:
This is our mum field, each pot is drip irrigated and we can measure out to each pot the amount of water, fertilizer, fungicide, etc. each plant gets:
In addition to the commercial operation, we also grow vegetables in a 50 X 150 foot garden, for our own use. We generally get several hundred quarts of beets, wax beans, green beans, carrots, pickles, tomato products, sauerkraut, potatoes, spinach, peas, corn, melons, frozen peppers, brocolli and brussel sprouts and about a dozen different dried spices. Not to mention fresh lettuces, radishes and onions when in season. And Honey! I've been trying to coax apples out of our two trees, and have been nursing the pear and peach saplings along for a couple years. Hope springs eternal.
Does anyone have any tips on pruning fruit trees?
-- Kris