Day 1 – Sunday December 1
I flew out of the Atlanta airport at 8PM Sunday night on a Delta flight to Amsterdam. It was an 8-1/2 hour flight and Amsterdam is 6 hours ahead of our EST.
Day 2 – Monday December 2
I landed at 10:30AM local Amsterdam time. Esther took the short bus ride from her father place in Aalsmeer to meet at the airport. Once we connected Gerard, Esther’s father, came and picked us up from the airport. It was almost noon by the time we got to Gerard condominium and the weather was cold and rainy. The parking garage for the residents was gated and located under the building so we didn’t have to get out into the weather. Gerard had a wonderful lunch for us of: fresh wholewheat bread, paper thin sliced ham, rookvleer and fresh, delicious cheeses. The weather cleared up for a little while in the afternoon so Esther was able to show me around the town of Alsmeer.
Day 3 – Tuesday December 3
A trip to Wageningen University so Esther could meet with Dr. Arnaud Bovy about her sabbatical next year. Esther also gave a hour lecture about her research that was well attended with several questions afterwards from the students – it was my first time attending one of her talks. We all had lunch together along with Dr Yury Tikunov, a colleague of Arnaud originally from Russia – some very interesting conversations. It was close to 5PM after we had a tour of the lab and were ready to leave to meet Annemieke, a college roommate for dinner.
Day 4 – Wednesday December 4 – The Brothers
Menno Van der Knaap – oldest brother
Menno owns and operates a large cut flower business that sells orchids. He has several large green houses located in Almere. The orchids are grown, cut, packaged and boxed from the green houses and trucked to a nearby auction house. Menno was in the process of changing out his heat source for the greenhouses from gas to wood burning. The Netherlands get their gas from Russia and are trying to become gas independant. Orchids also have to be watered with rainwater so Menno has a big rainwater collection system.
Maurice Van der Knaap – middle brother
Maurice and his partners have system of using dry hydroponics to grow a wide variety of crops. Their company is working to bring this system, of producing fresh produce, to food desert areas of the US, starting with Pennsylvania. They hope to have the first dry hydroponic greenhouse up and running within the next two years,
Gerben Van der Knaap – youngest brother
Gerben has refurbished some old greenhouses and built individual storage boxes inside and rents them individually. He hopes to have all the units built out by the end of 2025. There are several different sizes of boxes with rental prices dependent on square footage.
