Q: There’s a lot going on out there in the weather world. How is the weather affecting Dos Gringos?
 

A: You might say that we are weathering the storm. In the big picture, it’s safety first for our team members at Gringo East in Miami and Gringo South in Mexico, as well for our clients in Houston and Florida. AND of course we can’t forget our clients affected by the wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. Good grief!

 Q: What should your clients know about how this might affect your fall crops?
 
 A: We have rolled out our fall planting schedule and, as Mother Nature has so boldly shown us this year, she can and will dump rain when she wants and throw as much wind at us as she wants, without any input from us. We are still hopeful for a more collaborative relationship with her some day. 

 Q: Good luck with that... What have you been hit with so far?

 
A: We experienced 5.5 inches of rain with our first sowing and 40-60 MPH wind gusts. We do consider ourselves lucky as there were no losses at this point. We are hoping this continues to be the case so we can deliver you 100% fill rate/high quality Fall Sunflowers, Pumpkin Trees, and other DG fall flowers.

   Q: How did you avoid losses?

A: Over time and through trial and error, we have learned how to properly build /shape our beds so they are ready for inclement weather (See the pictures below for how we structure them.) We also delayed our second sowing by 3 days. We are back at it full force planting right now.

 Q: Where does all of this growing take place?

A: We grow all over southern California, Sonora, Mexico and both Northern and Southern Baja. Since at this point we don’t have a collaborative working relationship with Mother Nature, we need to plant in 4 different regions and 20 different micro climates to hedge against bad weather.

 Our flower beds shaped to handle significant rainfall

An example of a fast-approaching storm taking aim at our Southern Baja Mexico Operation

 Our newly-planted November Sunflowers in specially constructed raised areas
with trenches to handle water run off. Sunflower roots soaking in water would be no bueno!

  New Sunflower plantings as far as the eye can see.

This is what we refer to as “Stage 1” because the Sunflower
petals are tight against the sunflower head. This is the stage we like to harvest in.

 Stage 1 Sunflowers on Harvest Day.