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THE PLACE WHERE 

 PLANTS AND PEOPLE MEET 



Ht the top of Clough Hill, you take a left on 

 Bumfagon Road. At Cindy and Ron Debuc's 

 Ledgeview Greenhouses, the land rises 

 again — the lawn slopes to a house and 

 above the house are three snnaller greenhouses, and 

 above that, the newest and largest greenhouse, set 

 like a fortress near the crest of the hill. And the land 

 still continues to rise — to a newly cleared half-acre at 

 the very top. 



From there you can look out toward the Loudon 

 Hills and the grandstand of the New Hampshire Inter- 

 national Raceway. Sometinnes in summer you have to 

 raise your voice to be heard, but in winter, when the 

 leaves are gone, there's a quiet 360-degree vista. 



"junk land," Ron Debuc calls it. "When 1 was 20 

 and didn't know any better, 1 wanted a piece of land 

 where I could build me a house — I don't believe in 

 paying rent — so my sister and I bought this piece of 

 land — it is all I could afford. Now I have to find a 

 way to work it." 



Ron built houses for 15 years, specializing in colo- 

 nial reproductions — the house where he and Cindy 

 live now was his first — but the work dried up and in 

 1989, he looked at his 13 acres of junk land — and de- 

 cided to grow plants. 



In October, 1990, he put up a 30x36 New Englander 

 he'd bought at auction. This is used for retail sales. 

 Two production houses were put up soon after — two 

 21x96 New Englanders from Ed Person. All are 6-mil 

 double poly with polygal ends. All three are clus- 

 tered in a level area above the house. 



The business is a family operation. Ron's mother 

 works there; his sister Debbie, who lives with her 

 husband on her half of the land, said she could work 

 for twenty hours a week, never suspecting those 20 

 would end up being 60 or so. She does all the trans- 

 planting — "she's like a machine," Ron says. And 

 Cindy does much of the watering. 



In the spring of 1991, Ron had a crop (geraniums, 

 bedding plants) and no outlet, so he filled his van 

 and sold from the parking lot across from the Ramada 

 Inn in Concord. (The location's a good spot — he's 

 still there for four days a week during the month of 

 May.) 



The women run the greenhouses while Ron's out 

 selling. In April that first year, Ron and Cindy typed 

 up and xeroxed a flier and dropped off copies in lo- 

 cal mail boxes. They advertised in The Concord Moni- 

 tor. People were curious and started coming by. 



199! was the year of the organic tomatoes. Five 

 raised beds — 18 inches high — going the length of one 

 of the production houses — were built. Trenches 18 

 inches deep were dug. lined with plastic, and partly 

 filled with gravel. Ron created a mix, filled up the 

 beds, and planted 600 plants. 



They grew well — "they filled the whole house with 

 their vines" and produced "thousands of pounds. 

 Customers used to look in, amazed at the size of the 

 plants." But for people starting out, the whole pro- 

 cess was too much. The picking was labor intensive 

 and dirty. They sold everything they produced — to 

 restaurants, to the flower and lobster stand at the Ep- 

 som traffic circle, to other growers ("It was a bad year 

 for outside tomatoes"), from the van — but by Septem- 

 ber, they'd had enough: they let the plants dry up 

 and went on to other things. 



Might he grow them again? Ron shakes his head — 

 "too much labor involved." Finding labor-efficient 

 crops and then producing them as efficiently as pos- 

 sible is one way he hopes to expand the business 

 and keep it family-operated. 



T^ 



he new 30x148 double-poly house 

 higher on the hill was built in time for the 1993 sea- 

 son — just in time. As soon as one bench was fin- 

 ished — they're wood frame and wire — they had to be 

 quick — the crop was brought in. "1 could barely keep 

 ahead." 



The wind up here could be a problem, but Ron 

 has kept the house flexible by setting the ribs two 

 and a half feet into the ground and not into a con- 

 crete foundation. Galvanized struts in the end wails 

 are bolted to pressure-treated skirt boards buried two 

 feet deep. "Yes, the greenhouse definitely moves, 

 but it's solidly in place and no damage has been 

 done." 



It's wired for a computer and will eventually be 

 fully automated, Ron says. 



August & September 1993 

 19 



