Thanks for a great season!

Today was our last day open for this year.  Thanks for making it a good year in spite of all the crazy weather we've had.  Let's all hope the weather for the rest of the summer is better!

As I mentioned in my last post, you can still visit us at our Farmers' Markets through October.  We will have some flowers this week Wednesday and Saturday, but that will be all until mum time this fall.  We hope to see you there.  Have a great summer!

30% off!

The greenhouse is starting to empty out, and everything is now 30% off!  We'll probably be open for less than two more weeks, so come in soon before everything is gone.

Even after the greenhouse closes, you can still visit us twice a week at our Farmers' Markets.  On Wednesdays, you'll find us in Oak Lawn from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.  On Saturdays, we're in Park Forest from 7 a.m to 12 p.m.  We'll have flowers through the end of June, and we're starting to have fresh produce now as well.  When fall comes, you'll find pumpkins, mums, and everything else you need for your fall decorating.  Be sure to stop by sometime and see us!

June is here!

Let's all try to put May behind us and focus on June and summer!  What a month we've come out of.  Now is the time to finish up your garden, and we have some special sales through June 9 to help you with that:

-Hanging Bags $10.99 (regularly $16.99)

-Marigold and Petunia Flats $9.99 (full flats only, regularly $11.99)

-4 inch Annuals 99¢ (regularly $1.49, $1.29 when you buy 6 or more; includes seed geraniums, nicotiana, cosmos, cleome, pentas, dianthus)

-Wave Petunia (blue tag) baskets $11.99 (regularly $13.99)

-Clematis $10.99 (regularly $14.99)

-Pottery 15% off (empty pottery only)

Happy Memorial Day!

Both of our stores will be open today (Memorial Day).  The Chicago Heights store will be open 8-5, and the Grant Park store will be open 9-3.  Don't miss our Memorial Day sales too (through Thursday, June 2):

• 4 inch annuals are $1.29 each or $1.09 each when you buy 6 or more (includes seed geraniums, pentas, dianthus, cleome, cosmos, and nicotiana; regularly $1.49 each, $1.29 each 6 or more)
• Wave Petunia (blue tag) baskets are $2.00 off (regularly $13.99)
• Trade gallon perennials are $4.99 each or $4.49 each when you buy 6 or more (regularly $5.99; $5.49 each 6 or more)
• Pottery is 15% off (empty pottery only)

Our Grant Park store will be closing on Saturday, June 4 as we move more inventory to the Chicago Heights store.  Don't miss your chance to visit us in the country this spring.

Finally farming!

The weather this spring has made planting gardens difficult, but area farmers have suffered much more.  As vegetable farmers, we aren't as behind as grain farmers (who usually start planting much earlier in the spring), but we were still excited to get into the fields this week.  We planted a couple acres of cabbage in Grant Park on Thursday.  We'll be planting a lot more soon as long as we don't get too much rain.  We have thousands more cabbage plants as well as peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and squash just waiting to get into the field.  We'll be harvesting these veggies this summer and fall, so you'll be able to buy them at our farmers markets later this year.

Ready to Grow!

The greenhouses are in full bloom, and we're ready for spring shopping!  Although the weather has been hot for the past couple days, plenty of shoppers have been coming through the greenhouses.  Make sure you come in soon before we sell it all!

We got our last shipment of small plants for the year last week, so we're finished with planting flowers for the year.  We still have more herbs and vegetables to transplant though.  We also continue to plant combination planters throughout the month--both for regular sales in the greenhouse as well as for custom orders.  The warm temperatures mean lots of watering both inside and outside the greenhouses, and we're always busy reorganizing and filling in the main greenhouse.  The work never stops!

The weather so far this spring has been hard to predict, and that trend continues.  The heat should be gone by the weekend, and I now see low temperatures in the 40s for the beginning of next week.  If your plants have been outside for a while (either at your house or at our store), they're probably "hardened" enough to tolerate temperatures even down to 40 degrees.  It's best, however, not to take plants that have been protected in the greenhouse all of their lives and put them outside if the temperatures will be that cold.  Keep an eye on that forecast, and let's hope it warms up a little (though maybe not to 90 degrees!).

Country Greenhouse in Grant Park ready to open

Our greenhouse in Grant Park will be opening for the season today.  At 12,000 square feet, the retail section of this store is only about a third the size of our Chicago Heights store, but you'll find the same quality and most of the same items there.  If you're nearby, stop by sometime and check it out.  It's closer than you think:  about 20 minutes from the intersection of 394 and Route 30, 15 minutes from Route 41 and Route 2.  The Grant Park store isn't as busy as the Chicago Heights store, so you can be in and out more quickly.

Our Grant Park location was purchased in 2005.  The property already had five small greenhouses that had been used for wholesale growing in the past.  We grew and sold out of the old greenhouses for two years.  The large, glass-front greenhouse was completed in 2007.  The older greenhouses are still used as additional growing space.  In fact, many of the plants sold at our Chicago Heights location were grown in Grant Park.  Having the additional space in Grant Park has allowed us to increase our production substantially.

Final touches for opening day

We've been busy planting custom pots, organizing plants, and getting signs posted this week.  The greenhouse now looks ready to open.  We can't wait for you to see it.  Today is our opening day in Chicago Heights (although the weather may prove to be a challenge!).  Our hours are 8-6, Monday-Saturday (closed Sundays).  The Grant Park store will open on Wednesday.

With the dreary weather this past weekend, we spent all day Friday with 4 people fixing and assembling wagons for you to use for your shopping.  Getting all 67 wagons ready was quite a chore.  We replaced 14 wheels and went through 5 gallons of "Slime", a tire additive that should help the wagons hold up to the demand of being loaded over and over with your beautiful flowers.

The plants are all looking great, and we have plenty of new things to see.  Here are a few of the new varieties.  Come check them out soon!

Black Velvet Petunia is the world's first black petunia. Loves full sun. Grows to 8-12 inches tall.Superbells Coralberry Punch Calibrachoa will give you abundant, small petunia-like flowers all season on cascading growth. New "Punch" series features a unique, two-tone bloom and a slightly looser habit than other Superbells.

All the beauty of Supertunia with a miniature flower makes Supertunia Indigo Charm Petunia great for baskets, containers, and landscape.

Taking electricity for granted

Last week, I got a phone call at 3 am from my Dad saying the power had gone out at our Chicago Heights location.  I live at our Grant Park location.  This obviously isn't good since it was about 20 degrees outside, and no electric means no heat in the greenhouses.

By the time I got there, a worker from ComEd was there.  He had pulled the meter to stop electric from coming to our farm from the grid and was looking at the main panel.  The main 200 amp breaker had partially melted and pulled away from the panel.  This was caused by one of the electric feed lines getting wet and oxidizing, causing greater resistance and therefore heat.  The protective coating had fallen off, and the line and the terminal connection was corroded from the moisture too.  The ComEd employee was able to bend the corroded line away from the panel and reset the breaker temporarily, but he said it would last 10 minutes to 10 hours and had to be fixed.  Luckily my friend Mark works for a local electric company and was able to be there at 7 am and had the whole panel changed out by 11am.  The breaker held, though it was buzzing, until he pulled the meter to replace the panel, so luckily no damage was done as the greenhouses were only without power for about an hour.  We used a generator to power the water pumps while the panel was being replaced.

So I'd just like to say thanks to D&G Electric for their quick emergency repair and to ComEd for the response time of less than 25 minutes at 3 am.  As with all things, it's really easy to take things for granted until they are taken away.  Luckily this happened in the early morning, and nothing caught fire or froze from the lack of heat.

Tuesday April 12 update

We're still busy planting more flowers and vegetables for you to enjoy, but I thought I'd give you a little more info on what else we do besides planting.

We began shipping our wholesale herbs and vegetable plants on April 4, and so far we have shipped over 35,000 4" pots of basil and other herbs and vegetables.  Our wholesale shipments go to our broker at the Chicago International Produce Market where independent grocery stores and garden centers in the Chicagoland area purchase them for resale.

In the greenhouse, we're busy getting things organized so we can be ready for you to start shopping next week.  We try to plan where things are placed when planting, but sometimes lack of space means things have to be moved around to make things easier to shop.  We're also starting to move some of the cold-tolerant annuals outside to make space in the greenhouse.  Another thing that keeps us busy when we aren't planting is trimming and deadheading flowers.  This encourages the plants to put more energy into developing the plant and not just growing flowers, leaving the finished plant thicker and more attractive.

Our official opening date in Chicago Heights is next Friday, the 22nd, but we don't mind if you stop by earlier in the week.  We work 8-5 until we open officially.  Our operating hours will be 8-6, Monday-Saturday starting on the 22nd.  See you soon!

Tuesday April 5 progress update

This week has started off well. We picked up 312 plug flats that we will plant into 3850 Wave petunia hanging baskets and 2960 flats of marigolds, impatiens, salvia, and petunias. Tomorrow we will receive 107 plug trays of Proven Winners that will be planted into 5805 4.5" pots and 880 more hanging baskets. That will give us over 23,000 Proven Winner 4.5" pots and over 3,100 Proven Winner hanging baskets planted so far.

We've begun moving the perennials outside as the weather has finally gotten above freezing. Of course, this doesn't mean there won't be any more frosts. That means we have to be ready to pull in all the perennials if it gets too cold (which it always does).

The reason we're moving them out is to make room for all the flats we are planting. Most people wouldn't guess, but most of our greenhouse will have 3 crops of plants grown in them each season. By the end of the season we will have grown roughly 35! greenhouses worth of plants.

Tuesday March 29 progress update

I wanted to make a weekly update on what's going on in the greenhouses on Mondays but that was over ambitious considering Mondays are always so hectic. So here I am trying on Tuesday even though things are quite hectic as were are over 100% capacity in Chicago Heights. We started planting in our Grant Park location on Monday. We are working hard planting so that your flowers will be ready and beautiful when you come in this spring.

I'll give you a quick breakdown of what is in each house in Chicago Heights so you can better understand where your plants come from and the amount of work that has gone into growing them.

#1 is our propagation and germination house. This is where we root our geraniums on-site from cuttings shipped in from Mexico. There are also over 45,000 cabbage plants growing and over 90,000 herbs, along with all the pepper and tomato plants for our retail flats.

#2 has 6,500 rosemary 4" pots and 2,500 vinca vine 4" pots. There are also more than 500 Wandering Jew and bridal veil hanging baskets.

#3 has over 900 dragon wing and geranium hanging baskets and over 15,000 herbs (oregano, mint, sage, rue, and marjoram) and peppers in 4" pots. There is also 2,200 tomato plants in gallon pots.

#4 has over 300 Geranium hanging baskets, 600 Wave Petunia hanging baskets, 13,000 herbs in 4" pots (basil, parsley, dill, epazote, rosemary), and 3,000 perennials gallons.

#5 has 1,000 Wave Petunia baskets and 21,000 herbs in 4" pots (basil, Greek basil, lemon basil, cinnamon basil, blue spice basil, Thai basil, dandelion, rosemary, chives, garlic chives, summer savory, lemon balm, rue, and stevia).

#6 has 900 Proven Winner hanging baskets, 17,000 herbs in 4" pots (parsley, oregano, rue, marjoram, mint, rosemary and sage), and 3,000 Super Chili pepper 4" pots.

#7 has 4,400 6" geraniums, over 600 8" geraniums, and 200 12" geraniums along with 900 geranium hanging baskets.

#8 has 5,400 6" geraniums, 200 12" geraniums, and 900 geranium hanging baskets.

#9 has over 500 Wave Petunia hanging baskets and 200 petunia hanging baskets. There are flats of petunias, dusty miller, and marigolds. There are also over 8,00 herbs in 4" pots (parsley, oregano, dill, marjoram, and rosemary).

#10 has over 600 Wave petunia hanging baskets, 300 flats of peppers (our first batch for you to plant in your garden), and 215 flats of 4.5" Wave petunias.

Our retail gutter-connected house is filled with 200 16" garden basket hanging baskets, 150 window boxes, 150 patio planters, 100s of custom planted patio planters, and over 5,000 Proven Winner 4.5" pots. There are also 900 impatien flats, 800 petunia flats, over 600 Wave Petunia hanging baskets, and 1,100 Proven Winner hanging baskets. We have a bigger selection of annual grasses including 3 times as many King Tuts, over 1,200 8" geranium pots, and over 600 12" geranium pots. Then there is the Mexican pottery section with more new items including alligators, snails, new bowl shapes, new pottery with metal stands built in, and even cowboy boots. In the geranium section of the greenhouse we have over 5,000 6" geraniums and over 1,600 geranium hanging baskets as well as over 500 Kong Coleus and 500 Proven Winner Gerbera Daisies.

As you can see, we've been very busy, and we can't wait for you to see the results of all our hard work!

Proven Winners arrive for planting

We took delivery of 195 flats of Proven Winners on Thursday. That's 16,380 plants that are being planted into 4.5" Proven Winner pots or into combination hanging baskets. There are lots of sweet potato vines, Superbells calibrachoa, and Supertunia , including last year's new hit Pretty Much Picasso and one of our biggest sellers: Supertunia Bordeaux. 

A plant's worst enemy is FedEx???

We received one of our near daily shipments of young plants from FedEx last week from a different driver. Were we surprised when she opened the van doors! Of the roughly 40 boxes of young plants in the van, 25 or more were upside down or on their side. The rest of the packages looked like they had been thrown in the van from 10 feet away. 
Here's what our plants ended up looking like. We were lucky because only 5 boxes were ours.

Video clip of out new basket/pot filling machine

Here is a clip of our pot filling machine running with our 11" hanging baskets.  The baskets are set on the conveyor belt and go thru the machine.  All the excess dirt is returned to the soil hopper so there is less mess.  This machine has sped up our basket and flat filling times greatly, requiring less people to fill pots and leaving more people to plant.