Valentine’s Trivia + Worth the risk? ~
Q and A - with - Dos Gringos
Q: Are you playing games?
A: You know the old saying…Nope! We are super busy.
Q: It’s the 14th. What are you super busy doing? A: Restocking our client’s shelves AND most importantly learning everything we possibly can from what we did well and what we did wrong.
Q: Let’s go with what you did wrong. What mistakes did you make?
A: Well, I will start with the fact that we’ve dedicated 3 decades to Sunflowers and we still learning, taking risks, and sometimes failing.
Q: Let’s talk about failure…
A: A few people know that we are one of the few, if not only people who can grow summer varieties in the winter outside for a reasonable cost. One of the challenges with that is that sometimes the head size is smaller than growing the same variety in the summer.
Q: And…
A: This year after research and testing we adjusted the spacing of the seed and the amount of fertilizer that we used in search of a bigger head size.
Q: And…
A: We failed on the section acreage we tried this on. This resulted in a three-week delay in the crop and us having to allocate sunflowers to clients and make substitutions in bouquets.
Q: Ouch. What’s next?
A: We’ll learn everything we can from it and be a better company for it. In the words of Thomas Edison… “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” And I think after 3 decades we’re at 9,900.
Q: I get it. Ok. Onward and upward. What’s the trivia portion of this edition of The Dirt?
A: 1. Valentine’s Day started with the Romans but there are two stories about its origin. One theory is that the day derives from the Roman Festival of Lupercalia which was actually “celebrated” on February 15th. The other theory is that in effort to bolster his army, Emperor Claudius II forbade his soldiers to marry but St. Valentine defied the ban and performed marriages.
2. The first Valentine came from a prisoner. Charles Duke of Orleans wrote a poem to his wife during his time in the Tower of London, making it the first reported Valentine.
3. 144 million Valentine cards are estimated to be purchased in 2020 in the U.S. alone. See what the Duke started!
4. Candy hearts were originally medical lozenges. Boston pharmacist, Oliver Chase invented a machine that produced lozenges which then became the first candy-making machine for candy hearts.
5. 6 million people get engaged on Valentine’s Day every year.
6. $27 billion (yes with a “B”) is expected to be spent on Valentine’s Day in the U.S. with $2.3 billion of that being spent on flowers.
We wish you and your loved ones a very special Valentine’s Day and in doing so we have enclosed pictures of our teammates, hard at work this week.
Production is in Valentine’s Day full swing mode.
Another view of thousands of bouquets being hand-made.
Too many boxes to count, right now. We will have the final tally soon.
Smiling faces holding beautiful Sunflowers.
More smiling faces on the production line and even Master Grower Todd Thornton gets into the act!
Teammates gather at the coffee bar for some refueling with snacks.
Flowers headed out in DG’s refrigerated truck.
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