Keeping it easy

Richard Mostert is just as passionate about fixing things as he is about growing flowers. This passion has helped him sustain second-generation, family-owned Mostert Greenhouses despite a decade-long decline that has devastated the growing industry.

“You don’t grow roses because you have to,” Mostert says. “You do it because you want to. And I do like and enjoy growing, but I’m a fix-it guy as well, and I guess that runs par-in-par with the greenhouse business because I am the repairman.”

His tool-savvy skills and knack for thinking up alternative solutions prove that cutting-edge isn’t necessary for cutting flowers. With partner and sister Loretta, he continues to ensure the Bowmanville, Ontario-based company can provide quality, fresh product at affordable operational costs.

Get back to basics
Maintaining a simple environment has helped Mostert Greenhouses weather the tough economic climate. The company doesn’t have a computer system, doesn’t have artificial lighting and grows flowers the “old-fashioned” way — in the dirt rather than via hydroponics.

“You can have a million-dollar greenhouse sitting around with thousands of dollars of computer equipment, but the poor little plants in the pots still have to grow, right?” Mostert says. “If you want to embrace technology and use technology, that’s good. But if you really think about it, a lot of times that plant just needs light, cooling, fertilizing and watering.”

And while many of Mostert’s competitors in the Ontario Flower Growers Co-Operative Ltd. — a Mississauga, Ontario-based organization comprised of wholesale flower growers who utilize its auction-style distribution channel — use hydroponics to push their products’ growth, Mostert says his fresh weight is often heavier.

“You’re actually growing them slightly slower, taking a little bit of a hit on total production, but your quality is higher,” Mostert says. “And people said our roses actually did last longer because they were grown in the dirt.”

Another cost-cutting measure the greenhouse started five years ago was to close during the winter months of January, February and March to save on heating. After the first experimental year, letting greenhouse temperatures drop as low as 46°F, Mostert found the roses came back just as strong in the warmer months when they reopened.

Making educated cuts and implifying methods where effective doesn’t mean you’re behind the times, either. Mostert makes investments where it counts, such as in irrigation systems and pest control.

Let your fix-it side flourish
Cost cutting doesn’t mean having to go without, either. Mostert applies his passion for fixing things to come up with inventive, more affordable solutions.

For example, during the cold winter months Mostert Greenhouses closes to cut back on heating expenditures, so he’s implemented makeshift energy curtains as a secondary barrier to his single-glass buildings.

Taking sheets of plastic — much of which was salvaged for free from a tomato greenhouse — Mostert folds it over bars running along the top of his greenhouses and secures with clothing pins.

The clothing pins themselves are a tribute to Mostert’s quick thinking. Drilling a hole in each pin’s two clamps and then screwing small, pointed screws through each hole — ensuring the points on either side touch when the pin is closed — he’s made clothing pins that will slightly puncture the plastic and grip without risk of slip.

This system cut his heating bills in half and cost less than $200 per greenhouse.

“It’s what is out there that people are throwing away, or what is out there that you can use,” Mostert says. “I look at things as items, not what people use them for. I look in the dumpster and think, ‘OK, what’s in there that I can use?’”

For the hotter months, Mostert has fashioned his own shading curtains. Taking a local nursery’s white winter covering — which would typically be thrown away after the season — Mostert expertly hangs the 40-percent-shade material between his greenhouse trusses.

He strings five lines along these 10-foot trusses — one in the peak, one at each gutter and one in between — along which he hangs 5-foot strips of the plastic material in the opposite direction of the sun’s movement. This ensures 50 percent shade, 50 percent sun on a constantly moving basis.

The nylon string, tensioners and P-clips he uses to secure the curtains were bought cheaply in bulk — costing him less than $200.

“We put one of these houses up, and it was amazing the simple percentage of shade on everything and the way it worked, and the temperature in that house was a lot better than the other houses,” Mostert says.

Speak out for local, fresh growing
Maintaining a successful greenhouse in a downturned economy goes beyond cutting costs — it’s also engaging your local community. As a member of the Durham Farm Fresh Marketing Association, Mostert Greenhouses joins other producers in encouraging consumers to buy local, fresh produce.

As a member, Mostert engages in local fairs and farmers markets to promote his cut flowers — which in and of themselves are his best advertisement, he says.

“We were doing a farmer’s market one year … and I would do one [week] and my sister would do one, and the people on my week would come and would say, ‘No, I don’t need your roses. I still have them,’” Mostert says. “People were so amazed the roses would actually last a week and a half to two weeks. … We cannot do the head size or the stem strength of an import, but we conserve the amount of days of life.”

Mostert also takes the time to educate and chat with consumers who come into his shop to buy direct.

“I like customers, I like the rose business, I like growing and I like fixing. It’s an interesting lifestyle.”

Jessica Hanna is a Cleveland-based freelance writer and frequent contributor to Greenhouse Management.