Gertens and Stevie Wonder

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Carla, Mark, Keith and I went to take a tour of poinsettia greenhouses at Gerten’s Garden Center today. Lou Gerten was our tour guide. We learned so much!! Their greenhouses are in use 12 months of the year – and he said that is very important because they are very expensive to build and maintain, so they have to be helping make money. Gerten’s ships things in an area up to ND, out to Omaha, down to Chicago, but 90% of their stuff is direct to customers – regular people and landscapers/developers – in MN. They believe in doing a spectacular job at growing their stuff because they are going eye to eye with their consumers and have to answer to anything that isn’t up to snuff. They create their own potting soil for all the different things they plant. They have a whole big area full of machines that mix the peat and compost and sand and soil and whatever else he said. They have machines that will separate single seeds, so they don’t have to hand thin out plants. The machines were not running – because Sunday – but just knowing that all this automation exists was exciting.

He then taught us about light. An old friend of us is a big pioneer in horticulture – John Erwin – and teaches and researches at a University. There is a thing called basil downy that is a fungus that make black spots on the leaves. He hates to have to use pesticides or herbicides, because they are chemicals and they are expensive and they are labor intensive, but basil downy spreads like crazy and so it had to be done. He mentioned it to John Erwin on the phone a couple years ago and John was delighted to tell him that they had solved the problem. Keep the basil in the light for 17 hours/day and no downy will happen. They tested it by putting bottle caps on basil plants and turning lights on for 17 hours. The places under the bottle caps had the black spots (the black spot…oh…noo….), the rest did not. Gertens turned the lights on (for 18 hours, just in case) (they don’t turn on the light while the sun is shining – just lights to make up 18 hours total) and the basil has been perfect!

He taught us about “stretching plants”. Plants will grow taller if they are at a certain temperature an hour before and after sunrise. Cooler days and warmer nights give you shorter plants; warmer days and cooler nights give you taller plants. If you keep the average temperature the same between those two, they will flower on the same day. If you are trying to flower lilies for Easter and you need a slow down on the flowers, change the temperature and slow them down. Who knew how they got all those lilies to flower at the right time!

They are very careful not to waste water with the plants. The 20,000 poinsettias we saw each had a dripper right into their pot – drip…drip…drip…nothing wasted, or they sat on a pad that was moistened so they could wick up water through the watering holes on the bottom. Growing things is really a complicated, scientific process, and it was fascinating to hear about it.

Tonight, we went to Minneapolis to see Stevie Wonder. It was, of course, really good. There really is nothing like being in an arena with all those people, listening to music. He had a really good band – 5 man horn section, 3 percussionists, a pianist, 2 guitars, a bass, 6 backup singers, and 12 local string players. He played 2.5 hours after starting 45 minutes late. I am tired. Old people shouldn’t go for fun on Sunday nights!