Farm Has Room To Grow

Farm Has Room To Grow

News staff photo by ERYN DION
Bev Bartolomeo of Bart’s Greenhouse points to tomato hangers.

Eryn Dion
News Staff Writer

TEMPLETON  Frank and Bev Bartolomeo know a thing or two about growing plants.

Growing is in Bev’s family — her mother was a “fantastic” grower and he father oversaw their potato farm. The same goes for Frank, although he admits farming is his second career, one taken up after his own father became too old to work the fields.

The pair ran Bart’s Farm as a small outfit with a greenhouse — that also sold Christmas trees later in the year — for more than 30 years, cultivating a loyal customer base until Bev “dragged” Frank back to Templeton. The intention was to transplant back to town for at least a semiretired life, though looking at their backyard with two greenhouses stuffed with flowers and vegetables, it’s clear that never came to fruition.

When asked about retirement, Bev laughs, saying she guesses they’ll retire when they’re in the ground themselves.

“When are you going to retire?” she shouts to her husband as he mans the farmstand.

“Farmers don’t retire,” he answers after a long moment.

“That’s the way farmers are,” he adds. “It’s in their blood.”

“He’s the best grower in Worcester County,” Bev says of her husband later in the greenhouse. “He really, truly is.”

Tucked so far down South Road you’d swear it was in Hubbardston, the pair’s new business, Bart’s Greenhouse, takes up most of their yard, the long humid greenhouse filled with plants Frank has nurtured himself in the couple’s cellar before moving them outside and under cover.

“When we came home ... he said, ‘I’m going to put up a small greenhouse.’ I knew that was coming,” Bev joked. “I look out the window and it’s 100 feet long. I said, ‘Do you think it’s big enough?’”

Originally, Frank said he intended to leave growing behind and refurbish antique tractors for sale. Then, the country sank into a recession and “no one was buying anything,” Frank said. With the economic forecasters not predicting substantial recovery for almost a decade, Frank thought he might as well put up a “small” greenhouse and sell “some” plants.

“He doesn’t know how to do anything small,” Bev quipped.

Most of the plants have been growing since at least March and come in an array of sizes — from little seedlings just poking their leaves out of the soil to ones just about ready to flower. Their selling point, Bev said, is the vast amount of varieties they offer, from blight-resistant tomatoes to peppers that are bigger than a hand.

“Any farmer that sells plants will have varieties you cannot get at Home Depot,” Frank said.

That fact becomes apparent when walking through the greenhouse, where customers are greeted with rows and rows of tomatoes with names like “Health Kick” and “Better Boy.” Bev said many people are stuck with the three or four varieties sold in supermarkets and she’ll slip them a new plant.

“Lot’s of times I’ll give them a plant and tell them to try it to see if they like it,” she said. “And nine times out of 10 they do.”

The couple also takes the time to help their customers out, either by offering advice or by playing “plant doctor” and looking at sickly flowers or vegetables to try and determine just what went wrong. The most common mistake people make, Bev said, is overwatering, which can kill a plant just as quickly as letting it dry out through root rot.

“Teaching someone how to water is hard, but you have to use common sense,” she said.

Another common mistake, she added, is customers will leave on vacation and forget to have someone water their plants, only to return to find them drooping or wasting away.

“You don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to do this, but you can’t walk away from it for a week,” she said. “It’s like a kid.”

As for tricks of the trade, the couple have quite a few. For plants like tomatoes and zucchini, you have to pick it in order to grow more. Beans should be planted and replanted in waves, not in a field and not all at once. Geraniums should completely dry out before they’re watered again. And no, your sprinkler system or natural rainfall will not handle your plants’ watering needs.

The couple’s greenhouse is at 686 South Road in Templeton.

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Local Sources for Plants

 

Alice in Flowerland -  Elm St Baldwinville

 

Haley's Farmstand - Baldwinville Rd

 

The Kitchen Garden - Baldwinville Rd

 

Valley Florist -  Lower Parker St. Gardner, MA