THE PLANTING PROCESS: STEPS

When it comes to getting the entire process started, what are the necessary steps that have to be taken?

Well let's discuss the steps that Windmill Farms workers must follow when preparing a new crop for harvesting. The first step is to fill the bags with the correct soil formula. There is a specific kind of soil that the company uses in order to produce the best tomatoes. There are over 15,000 bags that must be filled with dirt. The next step is to place them into the greenhouses and put them in rows. One of our greenhouses has over 70 rows of tomatoes and about 40 plants in each row (mind you there are two plants in each bag. That means that 5,600 plants are in that one house alone.

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The next step would be to actually plant each tomato plant by hand. There are 15,000 bags that need to be planted, which means there are 30,000 plants to be put in by hand. As one could imagine, this takes a lot of work and time.

Once this step has been completed, the waterlines are hooked into the bags and are put on a timed system that will water the plants several times a day. The water is mixed with a variety of things that are needed to assist the plants in growing such as calcium.

The plants take about 4 weeks to produce the tomatoes and then they have to be handpicked. Each worker has a wagon and goes up and down each individual row to hand pick the tomatoes. They are picked just as they begin to color so that they can be shipped to their destinations before they ripen up.

The tomatoes come in for around 2 months in these houses and we continue the same process each day until the harvest is over.

I hope you have learned a bit about what Windmill Farms workers do to begin the tomato growing process as well as what they must do to harvest the goods when they begin to produce.