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Post by HankRocks on Mar 18, 2019 16:32:55 GMT -5
Got revenuers sneaking around looking for offenses and leveraging taxes on everything including the air you breath. There was 31 years of peace here till the recent annexation. Thankful I am at retirement. Looking at another place smack center of National forest land in the Appalachians where revenuers tread softly. Suches, Georgia. Red pin, center of photo. All green = national forest and 3000 to 4000+ elevations  Careful, you might be wandering into "Dueling Banjo" country.. |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 19, 2019 6:35:07 GMT -5
Got revenuers sneaking around looking for offenses and leveraging taxes on everything including the air you breath. There was 31 years of peace here till the recent annexation. Thankful I am at retirement. Looking at another place smack center of National forest land in the Appalachians where revenuers tread softly. Suches, Georgia. Red pin, center of photo. All green = national forest and 3000 to 4000+ elevations Careful, you might be wandering into "Dueling Banjo" country.. Been going to a friend's cabin for 40 years about 15 west of this location. My friend's father got in good with the Long family 80 years ago and was allowed to buy some Long lands. they don't normally open arm city folk. Long and Stanley family married into each other going way back. Long Mountain and Stanley Mountain next to each other. The Long family was apparently an unscrupulous bunch back generations ago. One of the Long family enemies, another family despises the Long's to this day Henry. There were killings. Like 5 or 6 generations back(early 1800's) this feud continues to this day. Like Hatfield's and McCoy's for real. |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 19, 2019 7:33:09 GMT -5
Going to do some hobby growing. Will order some top notch carnivorous plant bulbs and grow them out over the next 5 years. I set up an efficient pot filling arrangement. Peat moss is difficult to work with. It is difficult to wet it, best to use motor driven mixer. I have 38 of these ebb and flow pans sitting dormant not being used. Each pan is 800 sq ft. and hold 110 - 9 inch pots. They are passive and are fed by a single water supply from a creek. When grown to maturity(1 to 3 years depending on starting stock plants) these pots can sell onwards of $100 each. Can be quite lucrative. May keep this small scale. Funny thing, growers are not to open about selling their finer hybrids. They only want to sell to known growers of which I am not. 4 bales of Canadian peat moss fills large tub and fills 110 nine inch pots. $50 worth of peat. 3 hours work. The sale of one single grown out pot will pay for materials to plant this pan.    With these dense 6 inch starter plants up-sized to 9 inch pots a massive plant will be ready by mid-June. Or could be split into about 8 divisions and full 9 inch pots ready next year.  |
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Mar 19, 2019 21:18:53 GMT -5
If you start getting scarce around here we'll know why.
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Post by Garage Rocker on Mar 19, 2019 21:41:37 GMT -5
If you start getting scarce around here we'll know why. Because the carnivorous plants got him. Glad to see you're still at it, Jim. Good luck with this venture! |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 20, 2019 7:43:08 GMT -5
If you start getting scarce around here we'll know why. Because the carnivorous plants got him. Glad to see you're still at it, Jim. Good luck with this venture! If you start getting scarce around here we'll know why. Ha ha Randy, they'd regurgitate my carcass. Dang, I went order new cultivars to hobby grow and they cost from $20 to $500 per adult rhizome and most sellers will only sell 1 or 2 rhizomes of each cultivar. Average price $40/rhizome, that would make my average 6 inch pot with 20 rhizomes worth $800/pot !!! Super low supply, super high demand. Tricky plant to grow. Give it the right habitat and it grows like a weed but there are a lot of proprietary tricks to know. The large concrete systems I used with the aquatic plant biz grow these things like dandelions if you neglect them. jamesp getting crops in fast !!! |
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Mar 20, 2019 8:36:53 GMT -5
Are you considering becoming a supplier to other growers? I'm involved in a commercial ammunition loading enterprise and have found we make better money furnishing conditioned brass to our competitors than selling loaded ammo to the public. Who woulda thought...
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 20, 2019 10:19:24 GMT -5
Are you considering becoming a supplier to other growers? I'm involved in a commercial ammunition loading enterprise and have found we make better money furnishing conditioned brass to our competitors than selling loaded ammo to the public. Who woulda thought... Makes sense RWA3006. If orders are less than $100 each it becomes a real hassle selling to the public having to deal w/a new contact data each time.(you can have repeat address data for return commercial buyers). If orders are above $300 each it makes perfect sense to sell to the public and process all the different contact data. I sell fire pits. Average order $800. Most are sold thru a group product website that processes all the member client's addresses and credit cards making it simple on(my) seller's end. Nothing worse than packaging and sending $25 orders all day long to different clients. Takes a lot of time. Not sure who to sell to at this point. Obviously there are no large growers for these plants. Maybe I will be the first. Need a partner to do work and share profit. Will I ever get to be a 'silent' partner lol, doubt it. Is their a book on how to become a silent partner and find a working partner  ? |
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Post by rockpickerforever on Mar 20, 2019 15:15:10 GMT -5
Need a partner to do work and share profit. Will I ever get to be a 'silent' partner lol, doubt it. Is their a book on how to become a silent partner and find a working partner ?
No, jamesp, I think you will continue to work until the day you die. What's important is that you enjoy what you are doing, and the people you are doing it with.
I think finding the perfect partner - someone that you will get along with, has the same work ethic as you (SHARES the work evenly), has a good sense for business, has the same goals as you, and is fun to be around - is a lot like finding the right person to be your spouse. Good communication, and no secrets, are key.
You can find out about their previous work history, ask them a lot of questions and get to know them well, but it all comes down to the luck of the draw. Pretty sure....
With information in hand, make an educated guess, then take the plunge. Kind of a lot like marriage (you win some, you lose some)
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RWA3006
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Member since March 2009
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Post by RWA3006 on Mar 20, 2019 17:14:06 GMT -5
Are you considering becoming a supplier to other growers? I'm involved in a commercial ammunition loading enterprise and have found we make better money furnishing conditioned brass to our competitors than selling loaded ammo to the public. Who woulda thought... Makes sense RWA3006. Need a partner to do work and share profit. Will I ever get to be a 'silent' partner lol, doubt it. Is their a book on how to become a silent partner and find a working partner ? Funny you would mention that. I actually am a silent partner and the mechanism I use to prevent me from getting sucked into the abyss is I hold down another job that keeps me away from the the business. I'm available for consultation, etc. only when I'm not at work so it forces my partner to be more independent. I'm very lucky that my partner is an energetic, ambitious young man who is made of the right stuff. I think luck has a lot to do with it. |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 21, 2019 6:27:19 GMT -5
Need a partner to do work and share profit. Will I ever get to be a 'silent' partner lol, doubt it. Is their a book on how to become a silent partner and find a working partner ?
No, jamesp, I think you will continue to work until the day you die. What's important is that you enjoy what you are doing, and the people you are doing it with.
I think finding the perfect partner - someone that you will get along with, has the same work ethic as you (SHARES the work evenly), has a good sense for business, has the same goals as you, and is fun to be around - is a lot like finding the right person to be your spouse. Good communication, and no secrets, are key.
You can find out about their previous work history, ask them a lot of questions and get to know them well, but it all comes down to the luck of the draw. Pretty sure....
With information in hand, make an educated guess, then take the plunge. Kind of a lot like marriage (you win some, you lose some)
Retired college professor/coach neighbor about my age, nicest fellow, runs marathons still so still kicking. He recently retired and wants a part time job. I met him recently and we have become best buds. We both have been married over 30 years, same interests, same energy. He may be my man Jean. Not as an employee but as a carnivorous plant partner. Interesting event, I posted some crazy hybrids I collected 25 years ago in those wild swamp adventures in younger years. Same stock I have been tinkering with for 25 years. Must have 10,000 adult plants. Many of the native plants from 20 to 30 years ago have been collected to oblivion. Totally extinct most likely. I put a flickr link up and got 1000+ views recently of these collected plants. Someone out there is very interested. The plants out in the wild are usually tough and durable, so the interest as breed stock for new hybrids. My Sarracenia collection may be quite valuable. and James knows how to propagate them real fast. Like this photo of just a few native hybrid Luec's:  Yesterday's work. Wet 4 bales peat, filled 66 12" pots, planted them with grown out 6 inch pots. Sounds like a lot of work. Not really, in 5 hours was done. Because I have the tools and the space. I estimate this 4' x 22' planting to generate 3000 to 4000 adult rhizomes(60/pot) in 3 years. Like $100,000 if selling retail bare root rhizomes in small orders. I never planted on this scale, just 1 to 2 pans/year.  And I have 38 of these pans I could plant. All I have to do is trim them once a year, so it is passive. By the 2nd year the Sarracenia will choke out the weeds. No one knows this. Or how to mass grow these things. That is why 2 - 3000 sq ft pan systems can hold several million dollars of retail rhizomes. Of course you would never sell that many but it would be easy to generate a decent paycheck with competitive pricing. There are no mass growers of Sarracenia in the US. These are 16 inch pots sprigged with 2 - 4 inch pots. These shelved perimeter pots are super rhizome producers. Hell, ordered 200 of them last week.  |
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Post by HankRocks on Mar 21, 2019 6:38:51 GMT -5
Attractive plants. I never knew these varieties even existed. |
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Mar 21, 2019 6:53:38 GMT -5
Attractive plants. I never knew these varieties even existed. Those are just a few mild hybrids of Leucophylla Henry. There are other species and they all cross. Others: Flava Alata Rubra Purpurea Minors Psitticinia Oreophylla Mike Wang in N California: sarracenia.proboards.com/thread/454/mike-wangs-sarracenia-sale?page=1These guys grow them like hobbyist though creating a lot of work keeping them watered/weeded/divided.  |
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Post by fernwood on Mar 21, 2019 7:05:16 GMT -5
Your photos made me tired and sore. I could never do that much physical work at once.
Love the beautiful colors of the plants. The ones we had were green and maroon.
Hope you can find a partner for this operation.
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Post by rockpickerforever on Mar 21, 2019 7:52:32 GMT -5
Retired college professor/coach neighbor about my age, nicest fellow, runs marathons still so still kicking. He recently retired and wants a part time job. I met him recently and we have become best buds. We both have been married over 30 years, same interests, same energy. He may be my man Jean. Not as an employee but as a carnivorous plant partner.
Sounds like the perfect candidate for a new partner. Although, he is going to have to scarp that idea about wanting a "part time" job, lol.
I wish you well in your new/old venture.
See, you can teach an old dog new tricks. 
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Post by fernwood on Mar 21, 2019 7:58:43 GMT -5
When one enjoys doing what they love, it is no longer a job. I could see this match working well. Common interests and energy level. Sometimes it is not about knowledge of the specific item, but willingness to learn and dedication. I envision jamesp riding his electric bike with his new partner running along side, lol. Of course, the bike would need to be in rather slow mode. |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 22, 2019 8:52:08 GMT -5
Lol, fernwood. Not as much work as it appears. There are carts and tools that make the potting and planting ergonomically friendly. 2 hours every morning for 15 days and there will be a very valuable crop to sell over a 5 year period. I will have to use the swamp boat instead of of the ebike for this project. I am looking forward to going way back in the deep south swamps this year and collecting a sampling of carnivorous plants this warm season. Sample plants can be collected without damaging native populations. I usually divide and re-plant new beds in the wild to help them multiply. Bring back a half dozen of each cultivar and grow them out on a large scale. Plant collectors have wiped out many wild populations of Sarracenia in recent years. Most stands depleted close to roads where access is easy. My swamp boat can take you where no one goes. I have and will donate to those mitigating native populations of these protected plants. |
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
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Post by jamesp on Mar 22, 2019 9:51:23 GMT -5
Retired college professor/coach neighbor about my age, nicest fellow, runs marathons still so still kicking. He recently retired and wants a part time job. I met him recently and we have become best buds. We both have been married over 30 years, same interests, same energy. He may be my man Jean. Not as an employee but as a carnivorous plant partner.
Sounds like the perfect candidate for a new partner. Although, he is going to have to scarp that idea about wanting a "part time" job, lol.
I wish you well in your new/old venture.
See, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
I gave 'high energy' Ted a pan to grow 'his' Sarracenia in Jean. Gave him the stock to plant it with. Got tons of pots leftover, gave him those too. In hopes of him taking an interest and cranking up a web site to sell them. And he can help with planting work in return. It is the packaging and mailing lots of small orders that he seems interested in doing. Not my cup of tea. Maybe we can work it out and I can get a cut. Hey, I can collect coral in the same neighborhood as the Sarracenia. |
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Post by fernwood on Mar 23, 2019 5:31:55 GMT -5
That would be perfect. He can do what you do not want to.
Hope when collecting plants, you will also collect some coral. Best of both worlds, plants and fossils.
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Post by Garage Rocker on Mar 23, 2019 6:46:38 GMT -5
I am looking forward to going way back in the deep south swamps this year and collecting a sampling of carnivorous plants this warm season. This sounds like something out of my comfort zone. Heat, bugs, snakes, gators, crazy carnivorous vegetation...I think I want to do it. If you need, or want, a collecting partner on one of your trips, give me a few day's notice and I'll head down there. |
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