Ravenek Greenhouse Part I

I couldn’t have been more excited to start our Grower Visits at Raveneck Greenhouses!

John Raveneck grows two of my favourite flowers, Snap dragons and Matthiola Stocks.

Walking into Ravenek Greenhouses just takes your breath away!

We love Ravenek Snap dragons and Stocks because of the amazing quality John and his team bring to everything they grow. They also grow field flowers and cyclamen, but this blog is focusing on their Stocks and Snap Dragons.

In order to have amazing quality flowers, it all starts with how they are grown (this blog will be coming soon) but it also comes down to how they are picked and graded into bunches.

First step is picking the Snap dragons and Stocks.

As you can see in this photos, Snap dragons (and stocks) are picked by pulling them out of the ground, roots and all!

After the snap dragons (and stocks) are picked, they are placed onto a cart into groupings of the same colour and then brought straight into the grading room.

Once the stems are picked it takes multiple steps to get to the finished product:

First the same coloured snap dragons (and stocks) are brought into the grading room and separated one by one. They are looking for any flowers that may not pass for premium quality.

All the Snap Dragons that do pass for premium quality are gathered in groups of 5 and placed in the grading machine.

This grading machine carries the bunch of 5 stems, elastics them together and cuts each of the bunches so they are all the same length.

At the end of the conveyer belt, they are placed on the table for only a short moment until they are packaged and placed straight into a bucket of fresh water.