Every year in March and April is the
Gerbera flush, but it always seems to catch us by surprise, “Where did all the
gerbs come from!?”
Here is a little video from Jimmy Zheng the head
grower, and Artemio Garcia, his gerbera foreman to let you know we got them: so
go ahead and buy them at Kitayama Brothers.
FLORICULTURA
Last Thursday I attended two
events, the first was a visit with my brother Stuart to Floracultura.
Floricultura is a Dutch company with an amazing orchid plant facility in
Salinas, CA. This facility is fascinating to visit and completely
automated and mechanized.
The President, Kees Schoone said they
must make back their investment in 15 years, so they can rebuild it
again. None of our greenhouses are less than 25 years old. The
difference between them and us: they are factories under glass, and we are farms
under glass.
CALFLOWERS HAPPY HOUR
After visiting Floricultura, I attended
a happy hour at Jaliscos in Watsonville sponsored by Calflowers (formerly
NORCAL). I hope it is a new tradition that is modeled after an old
tradition. The old tradition was flowers growers in the Watsonville area would
get together after the holidays to share a drink and compare notes about the
holiday.
There were about 32 in attendance and it was nice to see some of
the faces from years past and present. Thank you Calflowers and let's do
it again!
“In the Field” dinners are all the rage in California.Small farmers host well known chefs for
events in their fields.What we haven’t
heard about is “In the Greenhouse” dinners, so we held one a few weeks ago at
Kitayama Brothers Watsonville.This was
in conjunction with the annual Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers Open
Houses.Kathleen Williford of CCFC put
together a guest list of local flower growers, food and wine writers and
bloggers, other local media and industry people for a fun dinner in the
greenhouse.
Dinner was catered by Local Harvest Catering which features
all local food.The wine was supplied by
Pajarosa and to put it mildly, it was very, very fun.Set among our gerbera daisies, we were able
to let our hair down, eat, drink and enjoy each other’s company.Kasey Cronquist of CCFC and Debra Prinzing
spoke about supporting local flowers along with local food and wine.We also wanted to press the point that
flowers belong on the table along with food and wine.
KB will have more greenhouse dinners for business and
pleasure because it is fun and unique.They also help us remember how lucky we are to be flower growers next to
Sunset Beach on the Monterey Bay of Northern California.Let us know if you would be interested in attending.
Ask your local florist or wholesaler for KB Flowers.
