St Croix River Road Ramblings

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Friday, January 4, 2013

Geraniums by Margo

For many years up until we retired, Margo had a small business at Pine Island called Geraniums by Margo.  We built a small greenhouse type building 12x12 floor size, added a small propane gas heater, and, in February, Margo started a thousand or so geranium cuttings purchased from a grower in Owatonna, MN.   

When we retired, we spent the springs in Wisconsin making maple syrup instead.   The greenhouse is still there, but has not been used for many years.  The photos are from 2001.  

North side of green house is just an insulated garden
shed. South side is slanted ribbed clear plastic to let
in a lot of sunshine in the winter 

By April (2001), the geraniums are ready to sell




Russ stands in front of the starting shelves with lights and
heat pads underneath

Some begonias for the garden

And a few coleus for the shady entry to the house

Another spring project is to paint the birdhouse gourds from the garden

The 1947 WD Allis Chalmers with the snow bucket is
our Pine Island tractor. 
Winter of 2001 was very busy doing the sheetrock on our new house -- yes we were building it ourselves

Master bedroom upstairs (basement, main and upstairs levels).
To get lots of light we bought large insulated glass sheets
and built them into the walls.  The casings upstairs are
all jackpine from the woods along the St.Croix River Road.

2001 we still lived in the Candominium
adjacent to the new house. We moved in
in later in the summer.  The new house is almost
finished 12 years later ;-)