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BERGEVIN'S GREENHOUSE 



Simple Techniques Produce a Hi^h Quality Crop 



WHEN BOB BERGEVIN went to the Thompson 

 School at UNH to study horticulture in 1952, the 

 school was full of names that are still remembered: 

 Phil Barton was headmaster; Bob Kennedy, the pro- 

 fessor of horticulture; Porter Durkee, greenhouse su- 

 perintendent. Bob lived in the student apartment 

 above the greenhouses and worked in exchange for 

 his room. His roommates included Ollie Kathan and 

 Paul Joly. Joly had already begun building Windsor 

 Road Nurseries in Cornish; Kathan would soon 

 found Kathan Gardens in Newport. 



Bob's route to Bergevin's Green- 

 house was more roundabout. 



He grew up in Allenstown and had 

 worked, starting when he was ten, for 

 Claude Culberson, a Suncook carna- 



BOB EXPANDED 



THE POINT AT 

 WHICH IT COULD 



SUPPORT A 

 COMFORTABLE, 



BUT MODERATE, 

 WAY OF LIFE. 



AFTER THIS, 

 HE STOPPED 



tion grower. 



So after Thompson School and a 

 stint in the army, it wasn't too sur- 

 prising that he and his wife Marilyn 

 (Bob's high school sweetheart) bought 

 a 30,000 square-foot carnation range 

 at the foot of Mount Tom in 

 Holyoke, Massachusetts. 



Ten years later, in 1967, he sold 

 that and moved on to a 50,000 

 square-foot range in Westborough. 

 He raised carnations again, but the 

 arrival of cheaper imports combined 

 with the energy crisis made growing 

 carnations in New England unprofit- 

 able. Bob survived by converting the 

 range into a garden center. Marilyn 

 ran the retail side; Bob did the growing for it. It 

 was successful — it was in a good location — good 

 enough for a shopping plaza. Bob sold it to develop- 

 ers in 1980. 



That was when he moved back to New Hamp- 

 shire. He looked six months before he found — al- 

 most by accident — this small cape farmhouse and 

 twenty acres of land in Candia. 



He left the garden center business and got back 

 into wholesale growing. 



IT'S A QUIET. ORDERLY PLACE— a tidy farm- 

 house set among willows, rows of greenhouses in 

 back. After twelve years in business, there is no sign. 



The first year he was there, he put up a 27x96 

 New Englander. 



The second year, he put up another. 



The third year, he put up three 21x96 "cold 

 frames," quonsets that can be heated enough to ward 

 off frost, but which probably couldn't hold a high 

 temperature in very cold weather. Over the next 

 five years, he added five more (three 14x96's; one 

 18x96; and one 10x96). 



After these, he stopped. He'd expanded the busi- 

 ness to the point at which it could support a com- 



THE BUSINESS TO 



fortable, but moderate, way of life. He and his wife 

 chose to have summers free and to hire no additional 

 full-time help. 



THE CENTRAL FOCUS IS WHOLESALE SPRING 

 BEDDING PLANT PRODUCTION. Most of the ac- 

 tivity from late fall until January is in the first New 

 Englander, where seeds and plugs are started. As the 

 crop expands, it moves into the second New En- 

 glander, then into the quonsets. Because the first 

 New Englander is used throughout the entire winter, 

 its heating is the most expensive and 

 also the most important. 



Its heating system is in a work room/ 

 storage area built onto the end of the 

 greenhouse. The primary source is a hot 

 water system fueled by wood chips. 

 Three bucket-loads of chips are needed 

 each day to fill the hopper from which 

 augers bring the chips along a trough to 

 the firebox in the boiler. Two trailer- 

 loads of chips are used each year and 

 Bob has built a shed to hold just that 

 amount. 



Hot water is stored in a cork-lined 

 double-layer stainless-steel 1500-gallon 

 milk tank. When the houses call for 

 extra heat, the water in the tank is re- 

 circulated through an oil-fired boiler. 



When Bob chooses not to use the 

 chip burner, he uses the oil-fired 

 boiler. (In spring, he reverts to oil be- 

 cause the venting can pull the wood 

 smoke into the greenhouse.) 

 There are also six modine units under the benches. 

 All the other houses are heated with oil-fired hot 

 air. 



The houses are cooled by fans, but they're not 

 needed much because the benches are bare by mid- 

 June. For venting. Bob opens up end windows and 

 doors. 



The houses are inflated double-poly; the covering 

 is changed every three years. The side walls are cov- 

 ered with sheet metal skirting so Bob won't puncture 

 plastic when he plows snow. The floors are dirt 

 (Weed control? "Hands and knees"). The 8x12 

 benches (four trays wide) are made of "the better 

 sticking" from the wood he bought for heat (the chip 

 burner was originally a wood burner). Some benches 

 are double-tiered in order to accommodate the 

 amount of material grown. ("The plants move out of 

 here so fast that it doesn't hurt them any.") 



The quonsets are single poly. The sides roll up by 

 means of a home-designed crank and in summer each 

 side is cranked all the way to the top and protected 

 with black plastic. This keeps the poly usable for five 

 years. 



The well is hand-dug. It's about fifteen feet deep 

 August/ September 1992 17 



