Sorry, no flowers.

While we were driving in the Gympie area a few days ago, I noticed that I had several messages on my mobile (cell) phone. It was Friday, and as we drove we moved in and out of good reception areas, so when the signal was good, I phoned to see what the message was.

One of my friends was after some Gerberas to give to a lady who has had a very stressful time lately. Health problems, and a stressed out husband didn't help, and he wanted to give her some flowers. As it was we were miles away, and we knew that with production down there was nothing much in the cold room anyway!

She works in a payday loans office - and is often dealing with people who are stressed out by their financial difficulties and she helps them with a loan until the next payday. It is important to her that she sources quality safe funds for genuine people who are in need of funds urgently.

A wonderful woman, she had been able to help some very deserving people and he wanted to reward her. Sadly we did not have the flowers or the ability to help him at that stage.

The Photographer's Visit

Craig Taylor came to visit the Gerbera Farm yesterday. He and his wife were quite amazed at the variety of colours of the Gerberas and I showed him the Florist catalogue that we get from Holland each year.

I gave them some of the flowers, so he took them home. His photography is very creative, so I am keen to see what results. They have some product on one of their websites using his flower photos, so I am hoping to get some Gerbera product at some time.

I showed him the photo of the frog on the flower - one of those rare photos that has"right time, right place" about it. Green frogs are rare in the hot house, and to find one nestling on the petals of a flower was extra ordinary. And for it to wait while I raced to my car to get my camera was extra ordinary too.

The production of flowers is a bit low right now - I guess the plants are recovering from the last flush, and the facat that we have spent a lot of time removing excess foliage. "Deleafing" we call it. It is amazing how much the leaves grow and block out the light to the crown of the plant which results in poor flower production. It is a never ending job.

We are planning to go overseas in 2008 - and it occurred to me that to get to Holland from London is pretty easy and cheap. I'd love to visit one of the big Gerbera Growers in Holland. We are hoping we can schedule in such a visit. I'm quite excited about the prospect.

The grandchildren

As the Gerbera Farm is on the property of our daughter and her husband, their two girls have been involved in the working of the farm almost all their lives.

They both earn picket money - perhaps by getting the buckets ready, bunching the flowers, or other small tasks that can be safely done by two little girls.

Miss Z prepared the buckets today - without supervision, which we have learned is not a good idea. Each bucket needs exactly two litres of water, and two of the tablets which help keep the flowers fresh. Probably to save time, Miss Z didn't measure the water as she was told, and the task had to be done all over again.

Miss A came up to the shed with a floral decoration she had done herself. It was quite a primitive thing to start with but in the end she did a fine job of hiding the workings of her arrangement. She completed a second one, and I went with her across the busy road to the couple who live opposite, and she gave them the arrangement she had made for them.

She went to take a photo with her digital camera - but the batteries were flat - so I loaned her mine from my camera, while she took a photo.

We had a wonderful pick this morning - both the standards and the mini's are producing well - perhaps it was the flush through of clean water (without nutrients) during the week. They seem to like a good flush through occasionally.

Production is up but other troubles are looming.

The flowers are looking wonderful but two major problems are looming for our enterprise. First of all - the water situation. With the drought there has been very strict water restrictions, but we've been able to continue after putting in a water management plan to the Brisbane City Council. But further restrictions are looming and it is expected that the nursery/flower growing industry will be hard hit by the new regulations. We'll have to wait and see.

Also the Australian government regulations regarding some of the nutrients use in the growing of our flowers is causing some concern. Some of the nutrients used in the industry have been linked with illegal explosive manufacture - and while some of the nitrates have been unavailable for this reason. But there are some nitrate products that are essential to growing flowers and other plants, which it appears the government is going to remove from use. If these products are removed - many growers will be in trouble. There is no substitute for this product - it is essential for growers!

We are currently lobbying - along with other growers and industry organisations - for the government to reconsider. In fact it is more likely the bureaucrats that are behind the regulation change - and they have no idea how it will impact on this industry. Watch this space.