The Perfect Partner--Expanding to Commercial Scale
This past week has been tumultuous, to say the least. Not only did I meet a wonderful man (yeah, he’s single) but he turned out to be an expert rose gardener with some cash to invest in a venture.
Don’t worry, I checked out his bona fides and he passed with flying colors. His family comes from Majorca, off the coast of Spain, and they’ve been growing roses ever since the Moors settled in the Iberian Peninsula.
He took all my plans and pointed out the amateurishness of what I was planning to do. To have a tiny hydroponic setup in the basement and an outdoor rose garden in a cold climate isn’t exactly commercially viable.
I guess deep down I knew this already, but I needed an expert to point out my mistakes. But he not only criticized, he offered an alternative solution. This sounds really attractive, the more I think about it.
He suggested buying some real estate in the zone that allows agriculture on the outskirts of Mississauga. He agrees that hydroponics is the way of the future, so his plan is to set up three huge glass greenhouses to grow roses on a commercial scale.
“Why don’t we cover the greenhouses with plastic to save money?” I asked naively, but Pedro (yeah, that’s his name) said that his family has been growing roses under glass for centuries and he wasn’t about to change.
He pointed out that plastics deteriorate in the sun and that the molecules the plastic cover sheds eventually settle on and are absorbed by the roses. He realizes that glazed glass is much more expensive, but he swears by it and has adjusted his budget projections accordingly.
Coincidentally, a favorite uncle of mine passed away last month and it was a real surprise that he left me some money. I didn’t even know that he was a player in the stock market and he seemed to have made some astute investments that created an investment fund in the six figures.
(It's great that he cashed in before this week's market jitters!)
He didn’t have any children, so he divided the money between my two brothers and I. This inheritance enables me to talk to Pedro as an equity investor in his rose growing scheme.
Before you start thinking that all this is moving too fast and that my head is clouded by the fact that I’m attracted to Pedro (I don’t deny this), rest assured that my accountant and lawyer are both involved in these preliminary stages of the venture.
Pedro already found the ideal location and we’ll be signing the partnership papers in a few days. The next step is to purchase the land. He’s happy to call the company Jill & Pedro’s Hydro Roses and was very pleased that I had done the marketing research that proves that we’ll be able to sell the flowers in this fast growing community.
Pedro was also very interested in what I was planning to feed our roses. He said that his family has been growing roses organically but that he wasn’t opposed to synthetic fertilizers, per se, provided that they have a proven track record. I showed him my albums of my prize-winning carnations, and he was impressed.
“I grew all these beautiful flowers using Advanced Nutrients products,” I told him. He spent hours doing research on the Advanced Nutrients website--he especially liked the Advancedepedia. “What a great company, they’ve really done their homework,” was his conclusion.
Then he insisted on calling the company’s tech info line. He told the man on the phone that he wanted an in-depth session. He quizzed the tech guy about Micro, Grow, and Bloom, their composition and Nitrogen content. It wasn’t enough for Pedro that Micro has 5% Nitrogen, he wanted to know in what form. (The answer was nitrates.)
Then he asked about the Nitrogen in Grow. It turned out that of the 2% Nitrogen in Grow, 1.7% was also as nitrates, with only .3 as Ammoniacal Nitrogen. So the tech guy ended up agreeing with my solution of minimizing the Micro in order to cut down on the Nitrogen content of our fertilizer mix.
Pedro liked Sensi Cal Mg Grow and Sensi Cal Mg Bloom, because they contained the same list of chelated micronutrients featured in Micro, but without the 5% Nitrogen. Pedro agreed that giving our roses too much Nitrogen would result in too much vegetative growth at the expense of superb blooms.
By skillfully blending Grow and Bloom with a small quantity of Micro, we will end up with an NPK of 3-6-10, which is within the suggested ratio of the Nitrogen being 50% of the Phoshphates and 30% of the Potassium.
“Always pour in the ingredient with the most Nitrogen first,” warned the Advanced Nutrients tech guy, so we will be adding the proper quantity of Grow first of all. Then a reduced quantity of Micro, and finally, the Bloom.
The reason these three ingredients come separately is because if they came in the same bottle the chemicals would bind together and they would be useless to our roses.
Pedro was elated with Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice and said that he has been looking for products like these for years. “I knew the trick of treating the roots with beneficial microorganisms,” he said, “but obtaining them was never easy. Thanks so much, dear Jill, for introducing me to Advanced Nutrients.”
He also explored the advantages of using Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid and was very glad to hear from the Advanced Nutrients technical people that the company is working with local farmers in growing half their crops with Humic and Fulvic and the other half without, in order to verify the benefits of these two magic ingredients.
Pedro is certain that using these two Grandma Enggy’s products, along with her Seaweed Extract, will result in prize-winning blooms the very first season of our greenhouse operation. “It’s a myth that you have to wait one or two years before you can have huge roses,” he said.
“If you treat your flowers right, they’ll reward you with large, fragrant blooms. But you have to have the correct watering and feeding regimen, as well as the proper lighting conditions."
Pedro agreed that coco coir is the best growing medium for roses, but instead of my Drip Irrigation System, he recommended using the Nutrient Film Technique that they’ve been perfecting in Majorca.
We’ll have to have further discussions about this, but he showed me some pictures of the flowers they have produced in their greenhouses and they truly knocked me out. Not only is he a handsome man and an expert rose grower, but also an accomplished photographer.
Where is this all leading? I’ll report next week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Don’t worry, I checked out his bona fides and he passed with flying colors. His family comes from Majorca, off the coast of Spain, and they’ve been growing roses ever since the Moors settled in the Iberian Peninsula.
He took all my plans and pointed out the amateurishness of what I was planning to do. To have a tiny hydroponic setup in the basement and an outdoor rose garden in a cold climate isn’t exactly commercially viable.
I guess deep down I knew this already, but I needed an expert to point out my mistakes. But he not only criticized, he offered an alternative solution. This sounds really attractive, the more I think about it.
He suggested buying some real estate in the zone that allows agriculture on the outskirts of Mississauga. He agrees that hydroponics is the way of the future, so his plan is to set up three huge glass greenhouses to grow roses on a commercial scale.
“Why don’t we cover the greenhouses with plastic to save money?” I asked naively, but Pedro (yeah, that’s his name) said that his family has been growing roses under glass for centuries and he wasn’t about to change.
He pointed out that plastics deteriorate in the sun and that the molecules the plastic cover sheds eventually settle on and are absorbed by the roses. He realizes that glazed glass is much more expensive, but he swears by it and has adjusted his budget projections accordingly.
Coincidentally, a favorite uncle of mine passed away last month and it was a real surprise that he left me some money. I didn’t even know that he was a player in the stock market and he seemed to have made some astute investments that created an investment fund in the six figures.
(It's great that he cashed in before this week's market jitters!)
He didn’t have any children, so he divided the money between my two brothers and I. This inheritance enables me to talk to Pedro as an equity investor in his rose growing scheme.
Before you start thinking that all this is moving too fast and that my head is clouded by the fact that I’m attracted to Pedro (I don’t deny this), rest assured that my accountant and lawyer are both involved in these preliminary stages of the venture.
Pedro already found the ideal location and we’ll be signing the partnership papers in a few days. The next step is to purchase the land. He’s happy to call the company Jill & Pedro’s Hydro Roses and was very pleased that I had done the marketing research that proves that we’ll be able to sell the flowers in this fast growing community.
Pedro was also very interested in what I was planning to feed our roses. He said that his family has been growing roses organically but that he wasn’t opposed to synthetic fertilizers, per se, provided that they have a proven track record. I showed him my albums of my prize-winning carnations, and he was impressed.
“I grew all these beautiful flowers using Advanced Nutrients products,” I told him. He spent hours doing research on the Advanced Nutrients website--he especially liked the Advancedepedia. “What a great company, they’ve really done their homework,” was his conclusion.
Then he insisted on calling the company’s tech info line. He told the man on the phone that he wanted an in-depth session. He quizzed the tech guy about Micro, Grow, and Bloom, their composition and Nitrogen content. It wasn’t enough for Pedro that Micro has 5% Nitrogen, he wanted to know in what form. (The answer was nitrates.)
Then he asked about the Nitrogen in Grow. It turned out that of the 2% Nitrogen in Grow, 1.7% was also as nitrates, with only .3 as Ammoniacal Nitrogen. So the tech guy ended up agreeing with my solution of minimizing the Micro in order to cut down on the Nitrogen content of our fertilizer mix.
Pedro liked Sensi Cal Mg Grow and Sensi Cal Mg Bloom, because they contained the same list of chelated micronutrients featured in Micro, but without the 5% Nitrogen. Pedro agreed that giving our roses too much Nitrogen would result in too much vegetative growth at the expense of superb blooms.
By skillfully blending Grow and Bloom with a small quantity of Micro, we will end up with an NPK of 3-6-10, which is within the suggested ratio of the Nitrogen being 50% of the Phoshphates and 30% of the Potassium.
“Always pour in the ingredient with the most Nitrogen first,” warned the Advanced Nutrients tech guy, so we will be adding the proper quantity of Grow first of all. Then a reduced quantity of Micro, and finally, the Bloom.
The reason these three ingredients come separately is because if they came in the same bottle the chemicals would bind together and they would be useless to our roses.
Pedro was elated with Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice and said that he has been looking for products like these for years. “I knew the trick of treating the roots with beneficial microorganisms,” he said, “but obtaining them was never easy. Thanks so much, dear Jill, for introducing me to Advanced Nutrients.”
He also explored the advantages of using Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid and was very glad to hear from the Advanced Nutrients technical people that the company is working with local farmers in growing half their crops with Humic and Fulvic and the other half without, in order to verify the benefits of these two magic ingredients.
Pedro is certain that using these two Grandma Enggy’s products, along with her Seaweed Extract, will result in prize-winning blooms the very first season of our greenhouse operation. “It’s a myth that you have to wait one or two years before you can have huge roses,” he said.
“If you treat your flowers right, they’ll reward you with large, fragrant blooms. But you have to have the correct watering and feeding regimen, as well as the proper lighting conditions."
Pedro agreed that coco coir is the best growing medium for roses, but instead of my Drip Irrigation System, he recommended using the Nutrient Film Technique that they’ve been perfecting in Majorca.
We’ll have to have further discussions about this, but he showed me some pictures of the flowers they have produced in their greenhouses and they truly knocked me out. Not only is he a handsome man and an expert rose grower, but also an accomplished photographer.
Where is this all leading? I’ll report next week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
posted by Jill @ 10:54 PM
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