REX OBERHELMAN: $27,000 (Net!) from Five Organic Acres

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PLOWBOY: You put the whole thing together during a Minnesota winter?

REX: Yes, and the first time we bolted the frame together, the whole thing crashed down on us. We had to start all over. Then we put in all the glass-thousands of panes. Sometimes a pane would fall out and crash to the floor right after we moved away from it. It was a hard job, but it was worth it. I'd do it again.

PLOWBOY: What do you grow in the greenhouse?

REX: In January and February we start the bedding plants — the petunias, geraniums, shasta daisies, asters, and others — that we sell to neighbors and stores. Then, come the end of February and the first of March, we start our slow-growing field plants like tomatoes and peppers. Further down the road, we plant the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. After that we germinate the pumpkins, squash, and melons. Starting those crops in the greenhouse gives us an early start on harvesting and marketing them. And since we're putting established plants in the field, we have a lot less loss to insects.

PLOWBOY: Do you use a special potting mix?

REX: We use one part rotted manure, one part sand, and two parts topsoil. We don't use a sterilized mix because we don't want to kill the good microbes in the soil. We don't push the seedlings' growth with a lot of extra fertilizers, either. We just give them one or two feedings of manure tea. Our plants don't grow as fast as they might otherwise, but they're stronger. They're not stressed out.

PLOWBOY: You raise a lot of seedlings for sale as well as for your own use, right?

REX: Last spring, we sold 600 flats of vegetable starts and 512 flats of bedding plants, and each flat had at least 72 plants. We also grew 500 hanging baskets with Swedish ivy, spider plants, impatiens, or vining geraniums in them. Hanging baskets are a very profitable item for us. We wholesale a six-inch basket for around $4.50 and a ten-inch one for $7.50 or $8.00. And they don't take up any of our growing space.

SHARON: We even do a few cemetery urns. People bring them by, and I put in a geranium, six or seven petite marigolds, and maybe some dracaenas, petunias, or nasturtiums. I arrange those and ask from $7.00 to $15.00 for them, depending on size. People tell me florists charge between $30 and $40 for the same service.

PLOWBOY: That's great. But how do you heat this greenhouse? It's 1,500 square feet, and winters get pretty harsh up here.

REX: We use a friction flow heater that Ron McMurty, a friend of mine, developed. Ron's got a patent pending on the design, so he doesn't like to tell too much about it. Basically, though, it uses a five-horsepower electric motor that spins a grain auger in a cylinder full of hydraulic fluid. The heat caused by that friction goes through some exchanger coils. Then 120°F air gets blown out into the room.

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