Bye-bye Beauties...

Next door to our greenhouse is a 300 acre field of mini callas we have enjoyed for two years.  This past summer, the field was a riot of colors with the most beautiful assortment of blooming mini callas.  As beautiful as our flowers are, visitors were blown away by the calla fields.   

Our neighbor had leased the land to CallaCo which is the largest calla and begonia bulb producer in the USA.  Here are two photos taken with our greenhouses in the background.

 

To make a mini calla bulb, it is a two or three year process of blooming the flowers, then letting them die back.  After one or two more seasons of this process they have a sellable bulb.  

This past week CallaCo started to harvest the bulbs. It is a major project with around 100 workers with 8 tractor and work stations harvesting the bulbs. It is amazing how fast they cleared the fields and picked the bulbs. 

This is very hard work and CallaCo has perfected the process.  CallaCo is an example of an exceptional local flower company.  Flower growing and bulb growing is still a big part of the Northern California agriculture of which we are proud to be part of.

~RHK