Where the North Branch Fern grows

Ken Johnston
Editor

Tucked away in the woods of North Branch, some twenty miles north of Stratton, is a business that has literally grown over the years.

Fern's Bedding Plants, owned and operated by Fern Pelletier, began as a hobby in the mid 1980s.

Fern planted some seeds for his own use one summer. Mike Williams who was running the general store in Blackhawk asked him if he would supply the store with some plants for resale. So the next year he planted more than he had the previous year. The next year he grew too many and the owners of Cloverleaf Grocery in Emo stepped up to the plate and sold his surplus.

From there the business continued to mushroom. He sells mostly flowers and some vegetables at depots in Rainy River (at Beaver Mills Market), Bergland (at the Bergland Café), Stratton (at the Stratton Community Store), Barwick (at the Roseberry Runway), Emo (at The Fairway Store and Emo Feeds) and of course from his home in North Branch.

Pelletier started small with one green house but now has over 6,000 square feet of green houses (six in total), which he says is a modestly sized operation in the district. However, it is big enough that it has kept him and his five kids busy over the years.

"I saw the business as a way my kids could make themselves a grub stake," said Fern who has had all his kids working for him over the years. However, most of them have grown up and moved away. His daughter Amy is home this summer to help dad, but he admits he is spread thin and has had to bring in help at times. In fact his wife, Carolyn took an entire month off to help him this spring.

While the public only sees him for about a month in the spring, work goes on just about all year long. In September he has to get his seed orders in for the following year in order to get the early order discounts. That requires him to sit down and plan what he will be growing for resale the next year. He looks at what sold well the year before and also at many magazines and catalogues to try and see what will be new and trendy. He said that he is very careful to try and bring in new plants that will grow well here and notes that sometimes suppliers will try to push a variety that will not easily survive in the climate here. He has on occasion taken them to task noting that customers will be disappointed if their new plants die.

While Fern says that they almost always manage to sell just about everything each year, the market can be unpredictable and can also be influenced by other factors such as the weather. "We are a lot like a family farm since we depend on the weather and are at the mercy of the elements."

He starts heating green houses in February and burns about 35 cords of wood to keep them warm enough for the plants through the winter and early spring months. However, a warm spell to early in the spring can leave him fighting too much growth too early. "I insist on controlling the watering as to keep the growth of the plants in check," said Fern.

Cold weather can also be a problem, but thanks to his heating system that is one he can control, as long as the power stays on to keep the blowers running. Where most people during a power outage worry about their pipes freezing in their house, Fern runs outside to fire up emergency wood stoves in each green house to save his livelihood.

In addition to hand planting all the seeds in February, Fern is also busy doing something that few greenhouse operators do any more; he pasteurizes soil to grow them in. While most operations are using a combination of peat and fertilizers, he prefers to do things the old fashion way and takes soil that he buys from a local farmer and runs it through a home made pasteurizer. It is a series of pipes with water heated to about 190°F. The soil is placed in the pasteurizer and the heat kills all the diseases and parasites that might be lurking in the dirt and most of the weeds.

Pelletier says he does things this way for two reasons. The number one reason is he feels it gives his plants more of an edge over other operators since they can draw from the minerals in the soil and also are less likely to be shocked when they are transplanted into gardens. The other is that he does not like to use chemicals in his process. He said it is very labour intensive but the month he spends pasteurizing is worth it especially when customers make comments on how well his plants take.

Setting up depots across the area just after Mother's Day, Fern sells his labour of love until about the third week of June. Then what ever perennials are left over must be maintained for the next selling season.

Hopefully he then can take some of the summer off to do some wilderness canoeing. While in tune with Mother Nature during his vacation, he admits that he really doesn't want to see another seed or plant for a while. But after a few weeks away from it, he starts to begin thinking about the next season and of course begins all over again with orders in September. "It seems like I work ten months to get to one month of sales."

In addition to having a hands on approach to seeding and pasteurizing the soil, Fern also has no fancy irrigation system. He in fact can spend as much as four hours in a day watering all the plants by hand.

The sales month can be influenced by bad weather preventing people from planting. That some times makes Fern nervous. Last year he was particularly affected by the Forest Tent Caterpillar invasion which prompted people to purchase less of things that normally sell well.

Fruit trees usually sell well but because of the caterpillar's taste preference for them, few people wanted to take the risk planting them.

When he is not busy trying to figure out the market, planting, watering or just plain getting his green thumbs in the dirt, Fern is often on the phone consulting people. Many folks call him and say, "You are the Plant Man can you help me!" He offers advice when he can and has spoken to various groups like the horticultural society in Rainy River.

At 56 years of age he says that his business could expand a lot, but he is not sure he wants it to get any bigger. He is eyeing up retirement not too far down life's path and feels he is already spread as thin as he can be especially this time of year when he is working on average 14-16 hours a day.

While retirement is a number of years off, Fern says he is content to keeping planting away, especially when it leads him to the sales depots where he gets to meet and discuss his love of plants with so many interesting people. He said some customers plant the exact same thing every year, while others are always looking for an interesting new perennial to add to their collection. Fern enjoys making suggestions to people and once in a while gets lured back to someone's flower garden to see what they have created.

"The people of Rainy River and Emo have been very good to me over the years," recalled Pelletier. He said there was no one supplying theservice in Rainy River when he started selling plants at the Rainy RiverSupermarket. "People started buying right off my truck at the supermarket. It was overwhelming!" He said that Rainy River is by far his biggest selling depot. After the supermarket burned down he was at a loss until the owners of the Road Runner Motel offered him space on their property. Eventually he moved to Beaver Mills Market which he says has worked out really well for both him and Beaver Mills.

Fern only does about 15-20% of his business out of his North Branch location. Without the depots he would not be as big as he is.