I can't imagine paying heat like that for a year, let alone a month. When you mentioned growing up in a greenhouse, my mind envisioned one much much smaller. I've never even seen a greenhouse the size of what you describe. Even when rereading what you wrote my mind reels at one that size.I got your original intent before you even added the edit.
Before I moved I was in NW Ohio, that's where the family greenhouse was. Surprisingly, many of the large greenhouses in the country are located there, which makes no sense. Near Lake Erie is like the Seattle of the Midwest, grey skies most days only shittier, colder winters. With cold winters comes huge heat bills in a greenhouse. $3,000 a month for heat was common (1980 dollars). The real big operations were $15,000. Roughly $1,000 a month for every acre you had under glass. At one point, my dad's two uncles owned most of the large greenhouses from Cleveland to Toledo. They were the ones that bankrolled my grandfather which allowed him to buy our greenhouse. One of the two uncles was embezzling money from their company and it forced a bankruptcy situation. Most of the land they were on has since been developed and turned into housing, but the company that bought up their greenhouses is still around and has a giant operation. They supply all the big box stores for about 8 states. Every once in a while I look on Google Maps to see the state of our old business. It's been vacant for a number of years. There's maybe 20% of the greenhouses still standing, the rest have collapsed due to lack of maintenance.
Now...pallets of salts makes sense, just the nutrients that you'd go through....knowledge needed to take care of everything....that's an eye opener.
I'm sorry to hear about the embezzling, one of my uncles ruined the family farming business. I understand the frustration, even if it was nowhere near the scale of your family's operations.
Thank you for taking the time to answer back.