w 



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be grown in the exact conditions it 

 requires. You'll get a better crop — 

 one that people will want to buy." 

 This new house will be used for 

 growing 7000 4" geraniums — usually 

 seed geraniums: he doesn't have to 

 over- winter stock plants and doesn't 

 bri ng in any disease or 

 insect problems with 

 bought cuttings. 

 Five houses (28x48, 

 28x60, 28x96, and the 

 two glass 22x40's) 

 are used for bedding 

 plants. Along with the 

 geraniums, 500 hang- 

 ing baskets and 2500 

 trays (eight six-packs 

 per tray) of annuals 

 and vegetables are 

 grown. One of the 

 glass houses is filled 

 with 3000 4" pots of 

 impatiens and bego- 

 nias (mostly wax; 

 some tuberous). The 

 bedding plants are 

 standard — what his customers ex- 

 pect. They are ready on May first and 

 gone before Memorial Day. 



Tomatoes grow in three poly and two 

 hoop houses (a total of about 10,080 

 square feet). Seedlings are planted in 

 staggered rows in raised beds in 

 which buried hot water pipes keep 

 the soil temperature at 70 degrees. 

 There are three plantings two weeks 

 apart — the first is around March fif- 

 teenth. 



The plants are trellised from cross- 

 ties installed on the lowest purlin, 

 watered with trickle tubing, fed with 

 a proportioner. They grow quickly — 

 up to a foot a week; fruit grows in 

 clusters of 7-10. Each house is pick- 

 ed every third day; around 15,000 

 pounds is harvested each year. Ed 

 grows 'Jet Star' ("it's fool-proof), 

 and — less familiar to the home gar- 

 dener — a cherry called 'Presto,' and 

 standards like 'Vision,' 'Buffalo,' and 

 'Boa,' all specifically bred toward 

 higher temperature tolerance. There 

 are few insect problems; sometimes 

 he has to spray for grey mold, a fun- 

 gus that can spread to blossoms and 

 prevent fruit set. 



The five unheated tunnels used for 

 early vegetable production are plant- 

 ed around May first. Ed takes up the 



22 THE Plantsman 



black plastic used for weed control 

 (he can reuse it for about five years), 

 rototills the soil, puts the plastic back 

 down, and plants his crop, often 

 through last year's holes. (After the 

 poly on the ends of the houses is 

 taken off for ventilation, air circula- 



tion can be vigorous and Ed keeps 

 the plastic down with lines of string 

 kept taut along the ground surface.) 



In another — 14x48 — tunnel house, 

 he grows cut flowers — snaps, zinni- 

 as, statice, bachelor's button, straw- 

 flower, calendula. Again, seedlings 

 are planted around May first. He 

 chooses simple plants that grow well 

 together and that are also fairly 

 bulky — "that will create a good bou- 

 quet without a hundred stems." 

 Each bouquet has ten stems and sells 

 for three dollars. Enough flowers are 

 cut in the tunnel house from mid- 

 June until the middle of July to 

 produce 600 bouquets. (By then, 

 field-grown flowers are being cut.) 



There are twenty acres of land in 

 crop production and by June 15, 

 most of the activity moves into the 

 fields. 



Although he tries new vegetable 

 varieties every year, he still grows 

 many of the older types. ("The older 

 hybrids are less fussy; ' Lady Bell ' — 

 thirty years old — is still the best 

 sweet pepper.") There are no gour- 

 met or "oddball" types. Along with 

 the usual early vegetables — greens, 

 lettuce, peas — planted in mid-April, 

 there are the tomatoes, squash, and 



cucumbers grown in hoop houses. 

 There are strawberries in June and 

 beets, beans, carrots, and new pota- 

 toes are at the stands by July first. 

 The first corn is planted April 15 

 (the field is a six-acre south-facing 

 slope of gravel; the temperature is 

 moderated by Winni- 

 pesaukee) and ready 

 for sale by the fif- 

 teenth of July. And 

 the melons grown in 

 a hoop house are 

 ready by the twenti- 

 eth. Thirty percent of 

 Ed's sales are whole- 

 sale — he supplies 

 produce to the local 

 IGA and to one local 

 lestaurant. That is 

 all Everything else is 

 sold at the stands. 



After mid-June 80% 

 of the fieldwork is 

 harvesting. ATVs — 

 easier and less ex- 

 pensi ve than trucks to 

 operate — pulling wagons haul in the 

 picked crop. And the use of ATVs 

 allows the side roads through the 

 fields to be narrower, which in turn 

 allows more space for crops. 

 Vegetables are picked daily — more 

 perishable ones in the morning, ones 

 that can be stored overnight without 

 losing their freshness in the after- 

 noon. They are immediately washed, 

 then delivered by truck. Retired peo- 

 ple manage the stands — they handle 

 customers well and enjoy the chance 

 to meet people. 



Many of Ed's houses are built from 

 his own designs. His first structure 

 came about in 1987, when the rafters 

 of a newly purchased house were 

 bent by wind funnelled between two 

 other buildings. He looked over the 

 house and felt that, although the de- 

 sign seemed sensible, the pipe used 

 wasn't of heavy enough gauge (it 

 was designed by a southern compa- 

 ny) to withstand northern weather. 



He repaired the house, putting cross- 

 pieces at the top and braces against 

 the purlins — and it's still in use, but 

 this didn't really solve the problem. 

 So he built his own, figuring things 

 out as he went along. It came out 

 pretty well. ..he built one for a 



