Hydroponics: Is this the happily ever after part?

We’ve been married over six months and Pedro and I are as happy as two peas in a pod…Or are we? Our business requires more of our time than ever, in the face of the world economic crisis, and we had to increase our advertising budget since the purchase of flowers is considered a luxury for ordinary folk, especially in tough economic times.

\We’ve geared up our production in anticipation of Valentine’s Day and I’ve been taking bunches of flower catalogues to bed in order to get new ideas for bouquets that we can prepare in advance for the big day! We used to sell wholesale only and let the flower vendors prepare the bouquets, but that is considered a value added option, and with our overhead costs constantly rising, we figured that we should also benefit from the additional revenue, rather than allowing the flower shops to reap all the benefits.

We will have to hire some part-time help to do this, so Pedro is off to the bank today to make sure that our credit line is in place to do that. As you know, credit is increasingly difficult to get these days, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Even though the government is talking about a bailout, and the interest rates have been lowered to their lowest levels, the banks are reluctant to pass on these perks to their customers.

Thank goodness there is one company we can rely on to supply the best possible hydroponic nutrients for our Roses. And that is Advanced Nutrients. Pedro is still enthusiastic about all their products and we hear through the grapevine that they’re planning to launch a new technology, that will eliminate the necessity of taking pH and PPM readings.

Pedro is skeptical about this and he vows to continue to take such readings, even if he’s told that we don’t have to anymore with Advanced Nutrients products. He is dying to know the details and can’t wait for the product launch. He visits the Advanced Nutrients website each day, but it seems to be a closely guarded secret at the moment.

How does all this affect our marriage? After six months, he has stopped doing those little things that ensure that a wife knows she’s special and wanted. Instead of coming home with an extra fine bottle of wine, as he used to, now he comes home with a newspaper full of details of the economic downturn. Instead of putting some wrapped dark chocolate on my pillow at night, now he asks where the aspirin is before he comes to bed.

A woman notices such things and I hope that the economy improves this year, so that he can stop worrying and concentrate on making me happy. After all, isn’t that a husband’s lot?

The Wedding Was Super-Wonderful! Our New Hydroponics Greenhouse!

Honeymooners Visit Every Vineyard in Spain! Pedro and I are great believers in long trips, as opposed to short ones. We both figure that once you're there, you should stay put for a while. Not to mention visiting the relatives on Majorca and Spain proper. Every house greeted us with huge bouquets of roses, delicious tapas, and strong, red wine. We visited so many households that at one point we just looked at each other and decided to escape to a romantic hideaway, which shall remain nameless. We plan to escape to this rustic inn at least once a year, to be able to take the pressures of our growing Greenhouse business.

While we were away a fourth Greenhouse was raised by an expert crew. A wedding gift from Pedro's family. It is covered with glazed, imported glass and now we have to decide what roses to grow in the new one. But I promise to blog at least once a month, so I'll keep the details for the next blog. We haven't even unpacked from the trip and we're smack back in the middle of everything. Not the least of which is the muggy, Mississauga summer!

All of our Greenhouses are now air conditioned, so it's a bit easier to take the heat. Spain was hot, too, so we can't complain. We both have tans that a Hollywood actor would envy.

If you want to enjoy life to the fullest, visit Majorca, lie on its beaches, meet its wonderful people, and taste its incredible food.

Will report more about the trip, next time. Right now I am going to take a shower and hopefully cool down. We put the cart before the horse. We have yet to purchase or build our permanent home. And the house that I inherited from my previous husband, has no air conditioning! :-(

Pedro is on the phone to Advanced Nutrients, ordering a whole line of their products for the new Greenhouse. It's state of the art hydroponics, of course, and we grow our roses using organic products, including their new, fantastic organic bloom booster, Nirvana.

Pedro and I are getting married!

My long time romantic partner, Pedro, has finally mustered up enough courage to pop the question. We're getting married on Saturday, June 21st, of this year!

As you can imagine, we have a thousand and one things to attend to before then, so I won’t be blogging too often. The Rose business has kept both of us super busy in the last six months, so I haven’t blogged at all. I apologize to the readers of this blog who were looking forward to the regular reports from our three, fully automated Glasshouses.

We have timed the growth of our Roses to have a huge harvest a few days before the wedding, so we’ll have thousands of roses to decorate the Church and the Banquet Hall we hired for the occasion. We have grown very fond of our Midas Touch Hybrid Tea Roses, so the color yellow will be very prominent in the décor.

Pedros large family will be flying in from Spain, so we had to make reservations in advance for all of them. Most of them are coming two weeks early, so they can tour our Glasshouses, before we harvest all of our flowers. Pedro’s family have been growing Roses for generations, so I’m full of trepidation that they’ll find our operation wanting.

“Don’t worry so much, dear Jill,” said Pedro in a soothing voice. “Advanced Nutrients has taught us so much, that now we know more about growing Roses than the master growers of Europe.”

Whenever I start worrying, I just walk into one of our Glasshouses and I inhale deeply. The fragrance of the Roses is therapeutic, I’m convinced of that. And their visual beauty reassures me that I’m doing exactly what the universe wants me to do at this moment in time.