This is a conversation between Virginia Gigilio (Virginia's Zinnias) and Sharon Baller (Van Dyke Zinnias.) It is repeated here so that other women entrepreneurs wishing to start a floriculture business can get ideas from two successful business women.
To get that seed, you need a commercial-grade seed processing machine. We bought a cheap one for around $8,000 a few years ago now. I can give you the contact people -- in fact, see all the particulars in our website:
http://www.redbudfarms.com/seed_processing.htm
Color separation. You need to grow them separate to do this, else the bees will interfere and cause you to get now what you expected! If you plant them as a mixed batch, that is not bad. In fact, it makes harvest much easier. The secret then is to just sell mixed varieties only.
Sharon
-----Original Message-----
From: Virginia Giglio, Ph.D. [mailto:vgiglio@globalthinkinginc.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 4:44 PM
To: sballer@lobatek.com
Subject: RE: Zinnnias are up
Sharon, I am at your mercy.
Tell me how to make seed as clean and pretty as yours is and I will do it.
I just don't know how. We were going to start by organizing our rejected blooms (in other words the ones that go bloop while we are bundling them) into very nice airy containers by color. Someone is giving us a big odl timey ticket turner made of wire. We thought this might be useful to keep them aired out. If you suggest a process, we will put it into effect and if you like what we do, we will sell you anything you want.
Thanks for your support.
Virginia
Sharon R. Baller wrote:
> Leave them alone. You have too many to hand tend them. I never do it
> even with a smaller lot. Sure would be scary to imagine grasshoppers
> eating all those zinnias. :)
>
> To keep stems long, don't crowd them. I do not thin them unless
> Nature washes them all into a blob along the rows. :) Crowding is
> good to keep weeds down, but as for blooms, I disagree with the
> research. At least as far as zinnias are concerned. Also, crowding
> breeds disease in zinnias
> --
> black rust and powdery mildew.
>
> Our crop is strong and looking good! We moved the operations to a
> farmers' market location in downtown sleepy Stockbridge. :) I cannot
> WAIT to see the results next month! :)
>
> I wish I had a video of this planting technique. :) I must say, it
> is clever!!
>
> Sounds like you are having fun out there!! Antique store owner, too!?
> FUNDERFUL! Just enjoy it ALL!
>
>
> Let me know how you will price your seed and how you plan to work it.
> I will give you some business. :) xox, Sharon
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vgiglio@globalthinkinginc.com
> [mailto:vgiglio@globalthinkinginc.com]
> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 12:00 AM
> To: Sharon R. Baller
> Subject: Zinnnias are up
>
>
> We have the 2 acres growing and growing now. Do you pinch them or
> leave them alone when you are growing them en masse? We are
> distributing NOLO bait (organic grasshopper killer) because we are
> already seeing hundreds of baby ones. Oklahoma is a huge state for
> bugs, locusts, roaches, creepy chewing crawlies of all kinds. I think
> it is because of our grains and grain grasses.
>
> Do you have any advice about how to keep the stems long?
> Also, do you thin yours? We are not thinning. We are basing that on
> Kansas State Univ research that indicated that crowding was good for bloom.
> What
> do you think?
>
> How is your crop coming along?
> The seed you send was marvelous. If we dropped it, it sprouted.
> By the way, the way we planted was this:
>
>
> My farm foreman Janet drove a small old tractor someone loaned us. She
> pulled a small, low trailer. I laid face down on the trailer on some
> pillows and leaned over the back. I had measured out the seed
> carefully for each row. My husband rode in the trailer and handed me
> bags and shouted where we were in the row. I hand dropped all the
> seeds in the wake of the tractor, then Janet later took a harrow and
> harrowed them in. We spread T tape over them, and where the T tape is,
> we have remarkably long, neat rows with a lot of space in between for harvesting movement.
>
> I was about to sign a 12 mo lease on a building in which to strip and
> bundle and prepare for market when a main street property came
> available and by a fluke I heard about it first. Instead of leasing, I
> got a bank loan with the building as collateral and bought a 2400
> square foot building and the owner threw in the consignment Antique
> Store business with the deal. So I am now an Antique dealer - yikes.
> Not part of the plan. But we have been working to reopen the store
> before the zinnias bloom, after which I will retire to the newly
> remodeled rear of the store that is Virginia's Zinnias. The great
> thing is the back faces on the same alley as our local florist and the
> wholesale florist vans make weekly stops. We hope to load our zinnias
> on those same vans and send them into OKC for distribution throughout
> Western OK, saving us gas. Keep your fingers crossed.
>
> All of a sudden I'm an entrepreneur. Yikes.
>
>
> Anyway, thanks so much for your great seed. If you are interested in
> buying some of it back, we are bound to have lots of it. If you will
> tell me how to process it to your standards, we would be delighted if
> you would buy it or direct us to someone who will. To buy from us, I
> think you have to purchase a $10 license so you are legal to buy it in
> OK. That's what they told me at the Dept. of Ag. and it is just a
> formality that allows them to track seed commerce.
>
> Your friend for life, Virginia
>
>
> *****************************************
> Virginia Giglio, PhD, President
> Global Thinking, Inc.
> Kingfisher, Oklahoma
> vgiglio@globalthinkinginc.com
--
Best Regards,
Virginia
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