Adventures of a new nursery

Adventures 6: Fall is coming...or did I miss that too?

Paul Riley — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:56:25 GMT

Wow, has time flew this summer! It seems like we just had memorial day and suddenly here is labor day passing us by. Even my son's summer vacation seemed to be over in a flash for him also. I guess the old saying - time flies when you are having fun applied to him. I'm worried fall will be
I was very busy also doing preparation work for fall and next spring. A lot of the plants have really grown a lot with all the rain we have gotten and it seems most are busting out of their old pots and ready for bigger pots. Being a new nursery, I don't have a lot of big equipment for potting plants. I do it the old fashioned back breaking way - by hand and shovel - one pot at a time. I can usually get about 100-150 done a day. I'm hoping to be able to get a potting machine in the coming year so I can do 1000 a day or more. I also expanded and created a new pad of plants on the other side of the yard. I will be needing a new irrigation system soon for this reason. I wonder if anyone has suggestions as to which potting machines and electronic irrigation timer systems work best?

I just brought in a large shipment of mums yesterday. A local farmer is bringing in pumpkins tomorrow so we are gearing up for fall. Maybe we should fix the place up for Halloween! Hopefully it will not pass by as quickly as summer!

Adventures 5: Jamming with Jams

Paul Riley — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:39:58 GMT

Hi, I am Wendy - Paul's wife. I thought I would add to the blog this week considering Paul has been busy. We have a booth at the Hillsborough farmers market to sell shrubs. Paul suggested I make jams and preserves for our booth as well so I have been doing it this year but not without learning a few things. I had canned some vegetables a few years ago with pretty good success so I figured how much different and harder could this be. It has been an adventure in and of itself.

I went out and bought all the equipment such as a canning pot, funnel, and sure gel. I had a ball canning cook book from my vegetable canning days which has a great section on jams and preserves, however, I decided to go on the internet for a recipe first. Bad idea. The recipe was just that and nothing else. I had forgotten about preparing the jars in advance so I started on down the road of preparing some apple and peach preserves without having jars in boiling hot water and ready. By the time the jars were boiling hot and ready the preserves were cold. That batch was ruined so I had to use the fruit for dessert instead of preserves. I decided I should read up on all the tasks before getting started on anything with the recipe. I did it again using pears in the right order and it worked out great and a lot faster that time.

The next great experiment was an orange marmalade. I chopped all the oranges and orange peel but they were relatively large in size. The recipe didn't say to chop them down very small but it did say to put everything except the sugar in a pot, bring to a boil, and let sit overnight so that the peels get soft. It didn't say whether to put it in the refrigerator or not - which was confusing? Does anyone know if you are supposed to refrigerate it or not? Anyway - the next day the peels didn't look that soft and I was thinking I didn't recall seeing large peels in marmalade jars so I put the entire concoction into the blender. I still have orange on my ceiling of my kitchen! Word of warning - don't fill liquids up to the top of a blender and make sure the lid is secure.
I boiled what was left from the blender with the sugar in a pot for a good while reading the section of my ball recipe book on gelling (yes - I didn't read the task ahead of preparing the recipe). It wasn't very clear on what temperature gelling occurs and had several tests. No matter how many of these I tried - it never seemed to be gelling. I figured after a full 5 minutes of boiling, it had to be done so I ladled the marmalade mixture into the jars, boiled the jars to seal, and then let them sit over night only to find that they were still liquid the next day! I was very upset. I dumped all of it out in bitter frustration saying I was never going to attempt it again. The next week - I was totally focused that I was going to try one more time before throwing in the towel. This time it worked - I didn't do anything different (other than chopping the peel smaller up front) but for some reason it gelled. It was the best marmalade I had ever tasted on top of it!
Does anyone know why some recipes use pectin to gel and others don't? I have no idea and would prefer just to use it with everything

Now that I have more confidence in the basic recipes, I have been making more exotic things like Peach Mango jam and Orange pineapple marmalade. We have the flavor of the week at the farmers market booth each week and folks have given good feedback which is important so that I can improve or make more of what they like. If you have tried my jams and have feedback or suggestions - feel free to provide them here as well.

Also - if anyone has any good recipes for unusual jams - feel free to send them my way. My current list of tried and tested recipes are the following:

Strawberry Jam
Peach Jam
Triple Berry Jam
Strawberry Peach Jam
Peach Raspberry Jam
Peach Mango Jam
Blueberry Lime Jam
Apple preserves
Pear preserves
Peach Preserves
Orange marmalade
Orange Pineapple marmalade
Strawberry lemon marmalade

Adventures 4: Home Sweet Home

Paul Riley — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:56:11 GMT

The great thing about working with the public now is I get to interact with a variety of people everyday. When I worked in corporate world the people were all of the same mind set "get the job done, move up the ladder, and who cares about anyone else".   The TV show "The Office" really hits the nail on the head on how things are - and why it is so funny. Out here at the nursery I am located close to a small town situated between three growing cities - Durham, Hillsborough, and Roxboro.   We actually have 3 county borders on our property. When I first set up shop and started building hoop houses and potting plants but had not officially opened for business local folks from Rougemont started stopping in to see who I was and what was the plan for the property. Most were all very friendly and obviously concerned as to what was moving into their community. A lot of folks knew the family who last lived in the old farm house and some were even relatives and all have their own stories as to how they knew them. Some have used this connection as a way to break the ice and ask to fish in the pond.   One person who lives close by had taken pictures of old farm houses around the county and brought me pictures of the house when the family lived in it. I was very curious to know as much as I could about the house considering I kept debating on tearing it down. It was in such ill repair and loaded with trash from top to bottom that the thought of renovating was very daunting. If you jump up and down on the second floor the whole house rocks. Windows were broken out, trees were growing into the walls, and the foundation was on very loose fitted rock piles. I was amazed at some items left behind including home canned goods long gone bad and what appeared to be dried pork cracklin layed out to dry on a table.
It's probably a good thing I did some research and found the house listed on a Durham County Historic Architecture Inventory. It is the Bobbit-Aiken-Carver house (ca.1850) - see the attached website for reference
http://www.durhamnc.gov/departments/planning/hi/hi_5.pdf.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, people sometimes have a romantic notion of how it is to work in a nursery and don't realize the work it takes to start it up or keep it going. The same goes for house renovations. I for one am a long time fan of the TV show "This Old House" and have been and armchair renovator for years while living in a fairly new home. Now that I actually have something to renovate it is an entirely different story. I honestly didn't not even remotely know where to start! If I had decided to tear the house down I think I would have had a possey of folks with pitch forks and torches ready to hang me out to dry with the pork cracklin. People have wanted tours of the house even though it is not fixed up yet. Several had suggestions for how to fix it up including how to deal with the lead paint on the outside. Of course, the environmentalists insist that we must get the proper authorities out here with their coveralls and bag the house while they get all the paint off. I can't even imagine what that would cost. Then we have the older residents who say it is nothing to have a little lead paint around and just paint over it or power wash it off.   That probably would not be the best idea either considering we have chickens and we eat the eggs.
Some ladies have suggested a gift or antique shop in the house. My wife really wanted to have a gift shop also and thought it would be unique to have frog themed gifts so we managed to clean up one front room and made it our sales area. She collected frog beach bags, frog visors, frog T-shirts, frog candles, frog iron artwork, bird feeders and all kinds of gifty items and we arranged the front room as best as could be done with the limited budget we had but after a year now no one has been too interested in it. My wife claims it is due to the lack of the gift shop sign but I think most Rougemont folks just don't see frog candles as essential to their daily gift needs. A friend of mine suggested converting the house to a coffee shop or a restaurant due to the lack of restaurants in Rougemont...not sure why they think coffee, food, and shrubs go together but I don't think that would go over well either.
I had to fix the bathroom also considering the floor was about to collapse from water damage and we needed a place to go otherwise I would have had to get a port-o-potty...ew.   I gutted it in one day with the intention of quickly getting it completed within the same week. A month later, my wife was calling around to local contractors trying to find someone who could come in and complete the work considering I was so busy with the nursery there was just no other time to finish the job. It wasn't too much of a problem not having a bathroom for me of course but my sister, wife, and mom were very insistent that it needed to quickly be resolved. My mom really brought the message home when she brought a pot with her one day when she came to help put in liners (her emergency toilet). She gave me a toilet in a box kit for my birthday a few days later. The next week my father and I were out there finishing the job.
The idea of renovating an old house really is overwhelming but if it weren't for this common factor that all these great folks in the area want to save and preserve then I wouldn't get to meet the folks that I do now (besides the ones coming to buy plants). They aren't all like like the corporate working world and only looking out for themselves. They have great ideas, care for their community and the history within it - including an old house that will take a tremendous effort but well worth it in my view now.

New Adventures 3: Feeling Clucky

Paul Riley — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:35:33 GMT

My wife has always wanted chickens but we have always lived in neighborhoods where it would not be appropriate. When opened the Nursery we though it would be a good time to get some chickens. I also found out that Guineas were good natural pest control birds so I bought 25 guinea chicks and 10 Dominick female chickens. I built a pin inside our old farm house and put hay, water, food, and a heat lamp to keep them warm. They did quite well but we did loose a few right off the bat to cold and sickness. One of the Guineas got trampled and his leg was twisted outwards so that now he walks with a bad limp. We named him Gimpy. After they grew big enough to go outside I built a coop with a wire fence but the guineas figured out how to fly very quickly. The chickens figured out how to dig under very quickly. It was a struggle keeping them in the coop and I quickly realized they weren't wandering too far so I didn't make it a big priority to run after them. The Guineas quickly became very much a BIG nuisance though. They are LOUD! They will squawk at the slightest thing. They have almost gotten themselves eaten by hawks on several occasions due to their own loudness. I would try to get them into the coop before leaving for the evening but they would not want to go so they would fly up onto the roof of a barn and squawk loudly at me. A hawk would start to circle at the noise and I would try to get them down but they would be oblivious to the danger and keep doing it.
Eventually I had to give them away (except for Gimpy the handicapped one) because they started wandering into the neighbors yard and eating their new grass seed. I did get 9 more chickens from a friend who had to move and couldn't take his chickens.
There is definitely a pecking order though in the yard between the Dominick's and the Delaware chickens. They are very separate groups except one white one has decided the Dominick group is the better group. They have all gotten quite fat from dinner scraps and waddle around the yard. They like to take dust baths in the barn or relax in the tall grass.
I have a few favorites (or they like me best - I can't quite tell which way it goes). There is a Delaware I call "4 toes" because she is missing a toe nail and she definitely has a liking for me and follows me like a dog. There is a Dominick that also will follow me around more. The Dominick's will squat and allow us to pick them up. My son loves to bring them food on the weekends and they chase him around the nursery. He calls them senorita fluffy butts! Surprisingly I really like them better than most of the other pets we have ever had (especially cats)! Unfortunately we have lost about 5 to local predators. I found a pile of gray feathers the other day behind the barn and nothing else. I've expanded the chicken run so we can contain them at night and when I'm not there and am putting bird wire on top so they can't fly out. As much as I'd like for them to be free all the time I want to keep them safe too.

The eggs are really very good. We have been getting approximately a dozen a day now and started selling them at the local farmers market on weekends. It is now a tradition to have French toast every Sunday at our house.

Adventures part 2

Paul Riley — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:34:19 GMT

A lot of people who come out to the nursery often think that having my own Nursery must "be the life!" They have these grand notions of hanging out in the nice weather and clipping bushes. That is not actually the reality of it and over the past 5 years I have learned this realization because I used to be one of those folks who thought this also. Most often my week now consists of things like water pipes breaking when it is 15 degrees outside, gutting the old bathroom in our farmhouse and putting in a new one, or making a stock pick up trip 75 miles away.
5 years ago I spent my days in corporate world cubicle dreaming of the day I could have my own farm. My wife, whose grandparents had farms knew the reality of farming was not a grand notion and was very hard work. She would make me aware of this every time I brought it up. When I finally decided that corporate world was just not for me any longer, my wife suggested the Nursery business. This sounded like a good idea because it seemed more realistic for what I was looking for. I decided to take classes at NC State University and work at the NC State Horticulture lab to get experience. That was the best move I had ever made. I went to visit Nursery businesses and they really did look like they were the way to go and I wanted in! Again - looking at something from the outside does not always show what it is really like. To be an owner I needed land, stock, equipment, and money. I didn't have much money because my wife had been having major medical issues but we decided it was now or never and put everything we had into buying what we could and borrowing the rest. When we bought the property - we had to start it all from scratch. Clear fields, haul in gravel, build a water pump from the pond, put in sprinkler systems, dig drainage ditches, clean out the old house for an office, clean out the barns for storage, and pot plants. This was a huge amount of work! I couldn't afford to hire help so my family has helped me when ever they could.
Now when I think back to the grand notions of what I thought a Nursery business was 5 years ago I know that it was not what I thought it was but I am so glad I did it anyway. I would not have it any other way. I am so tired when I come home at night that I don't make it much past dinner before I'm asleep on the couch but there is nothing like that feeling of - "I did it myself". This is the life!

New Nursery Fun on the Farm

Paul Riley — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:49:22 GMT

I opened Tree Frog Nursery in Rougemont NC last April. It has been a challenging first year considering the drought among many other things. Business was slow and I was not able to pour funds into it right away until I made money. I have a lot of horticulture and business background but never owned a business before so to open on a year as this was more than I bargained for. I wasn't lucky to have family in the business to teach me what to do or give me land and equipment so everything has been from scratch. We sit on an old 36 acre farm with a pond and an old house (circa 1850). The house was practically about to fall part and the two barns also were also loosing the battle to stay up. I needed to fix things up in the house and barns to use as an office and storage but the amount of fixing was more than I realized. Currently the bathroom in the house has been gutted for over a month when I realized the floor was about to fall in from water damage. This causes a lot of problems when my female staff comes to work. I finally had to give up the ghost on one barn. The previous residents were major pack rats so it had years of stuff inside. I had to haul off all of it then tore it down using my tractor. The old pond had a dam and drain pipe but was so old that it had broken off below a good drainage level so I had to build it up by attaching a new pipe to the old one. Once I had that fixed I realized I had a resident beaver living on the far side of the pond but liked to plug up the drain pipe for fun. I have tried to "terminate" him but he is sly and only comes out when I'm not there so I have yet to get him. The well for the old house is very shallow and would only run 5 minutes of water before drying up and not running for another few hours. I had to build a pump from the pond for this reason. When I ordered the first greenhouse from Jaderloon I thought I'd try to save money by building it myself...big mistake! The instructions were like that on most technology these days....meant for engineers. It took 3 times longer for me to do this and I lost precious growing time....lesson learned....next time get it installed! I'm sure others can relate who had to start a small business from the bottom - everything cost twice as much as you thought and takes three times longer to accomplish than your business plan has.