Thiel’s Greenhouse provides baskets for the town, grows container pots for apartment owners and grows plants for other garden centres
BRUDERHEIM, Alta. — Many women receive flowers for their birthday. Nadine Stielow got a greenhouse.
Stielow’s husband, Bob, just happened to meet a member of the Thiel family, who mentioned that their family’s 52-year-old greenhouse business was for sale.
Between Nadine’s love of gardening and Bob’s entrepreneurial and business skills, the couple had the right combination of naïveté and moxie.
In 2010, the couple bought Thiel’s Greenhouse, a business at the end of a dead end road in the small town of Bruderheim.
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“Bob ran a business all his life. I had a partner and a mentor I could trust to keep the business aspect. I knew I didn’t have to learn that all at once,” Nadine said during a busy spring weekday.
This winter, five years after buying the business, Nadine received the Alberta Greenhouse Growers Association Grower of the Year award for her innovation and enthusiasm for expanding the greenhouse into a consumer destination.
“I didn’t receive the award because I know everything about greenhouses and growing. I got it for my tenacity and ability to run the facility,” said Nadine, who remembers coming to Thiel’s as a child with her mother and grandmother.
“I learned my love of gardening and planting from my mom,” said Nadine, who grew up on a farm in nearby Josephburg. “The roots run deep in a family of farmers.”
Nadine and Bob bought the family farm from her parents, Norm and Shirley Smith, who now help out in the greenhouse.
“It fills me up to work with my mom and dad every day,” said Nadine.
“In a stressful situation, it’s nice to have family members handy.”
The Stielows’ three children, Malcolm, Derrick and Anthony, all have worked in the greenhouse at some point. As well, Bob spends most evenings and weekends there fixing and building.
The couple have built additional greenhouses, added self-watering lines to improve efficiency and tapped into the growing container gardening industry.
Dozens of small pots with lettuce and other vegetables are pre-planted for apartment and balcony gardens. Instead of growing cucumbers with a two metre-trailing vine, they sell cucumber varieties suitable for containers.
“We have more selection of different vegetables.”
The greenhouse is located an hour east of Edmonton in Alberta’s Heartland region, which is home to energy upgraders and plenty of discretionary income that can be spent on gardening.
It’s not uncommon for farmers and acreage owners to back up a pick-up truck at the Bruderheim location and fill it with flowers and shrubs.
Urban buyers at the Fort Saskatchewan location likely spend the same amount, but they pick up plants every day after work for three weeks.
Nadine expanded the wholesale plant business soon after buying the business. The greenhouse grows 10,000 geraniums for sale in other greenhouses across the province.
They have also developed contracts with local municipalities and nearby towns and cities to supply the baskets that hang on municipal lamp posts.
“As a local owner of an independent garden centre, I appreciate the municipalities coming to me.”
In a half-built greenhouse behind the existing greenhouses, Nadine tosses out the idea of a floating lettuce bed that will allow them to grow fresh lettuce and herbs year round. It’s a way of tapping into the growing trend of buying local food.
“People want to source their food locally,” she said.
“We know we’re in the right direction growing food as well as flowers.”
Nadine has used the resources and expertise available throughout the greenhouse industry.
She regularly taps into horticulture experts in the province and has travelled to conferences across North America learning the best and most innovative practices.
She recently adopted an integrated pest management plan to control insects and pests in the greenhouse and uses chemicals as a last resort.
“I work here and all our employees work here, why would we want to eat herbs sprayed with something? I didn’t start a business that was my happy place to turn it into something unhealthy.”
When people said pests couldn’t be controlled in the greenhouse without pesticides, Nadine dug in her heels to find a solution to pests without chemicals.
Aphids, thrips, spider mites and fungus gnats are all controlled with their own unique predator.
“I absolutely love the system we have going here.”
Nadine volunteered for the integrated pest management plan committee organized by Alberta Agriculture and the Alberta Greenhouse Growers Association to help develop best management practices for controlling pests in greenhouses.
“I think how you move forward in any industry is thinking outside the box.”
She is also doing what she can to help develop the horticulture stream of the green certificate program for high school students.
“I want to mentor and encourage more people to come into the industry. It’s a great industry to be in. I just love it.”
Contact mary.macarthur@producer.com
