Grow Like a Rock Star: Andy from McNitt Growers
In horticulture, success rarely happens overnight. Like a great performance, it takes years of preparation, experimentation, and persistence before everything finally comes together on stage.
For Andy McNitt, owner of McNitt Growers in Carbondale, Illinois, the journey from a fruit orchard in southern Illinois to a thriving greenhouse and strawberry plug nursery has unfolded step by step, season after season.
Today, McNitt Growers produces vibrant spring bedding plants for independent garden centers, welcomes retail customers to its greenhouse each spring, and specializes in producing fall strawberry plug plants for farms across the United States. The operation spans approximately 1.4 acres of greenhouse space, where careful planning, strong partnerships, and decades of experience help the team deliver consistent crops year after year.
But before the greenhouses became the main stage, the McNitt family had to find their rhythm.
From Orchard Roots to Greenhouse Growth
The McNitt family moved to southern Illinois in 1987 and purchased a 138-acre fruit orchard. At the time, fruit production was expected to be the foundation of the business. However, the economics of orchard farming soon pushed the family to explore other opportunities.
“We bought a fruit orchard that wasn’t making enough money doing fruit,” Andy explains. “We had some spare acres that weren’t in fruit production, and we started doing vegetable production.”
Vegetables helped diversify the farm for a few years, but the real turning point came when the family decided to build their first greenhouse in the early 1990s.
“We put up a greenhouse around ’91, and that started to consistently make money. It was something my parents were good at.”
The move made sense. Andy’s father had farmed barley and potatoes in Colorado, while his mother had experience working in a greenhouse growing bedding plants. Those backgrounds helped the family transition into greenhouse production.
Over time, the greenhouse became the headliner of the business. What began as 10,000 square feet of greenhouse production gradually expanded into the 1.4 acres of greenhouse space McNitt Growers operates today.
A Family Operation That Plays to Its Strengths
McNitt Growers remains a family band. Andy works alongside his brother Bill, while their parents still help with the business.
Like a band where each musician brings a different strength to the performance, the brothers have learned to focus on their individual roles.
“We’ve known for a long time that he has his lane and I have mine,” Andy says. “Sometimes you need to have conversations about the other person’s lane, but you don’t need to be in it making every decision.”
Bill focuses heavily on plant selection and crop presentation, evaluating new varieties each season and deciding what makes the cut.
“When we go to Cultivate, he looks at all the new flowers and studies them. He’ll say, ‘I like this red geranium better than that red geranium because it’s better suited for the container height.’”
Andy spends more time on the operational side of the greenhouse.
“I tend to focus more on the mechanical side of things. What equipment we need, how it’s going to work, and how it’s going to improve the process.”
Together, those complementary roles keep the operation moving efficiently.
Growing Color for Spring
Each spring, McNitt Growers fills its greenhouses with annuals, hanging baskets, planters, and flats destined for independent garden centers and retail customers.
For Andy, plant quality starts with strong plant health and structure.
“We strive to be pest free,” he says. “And we work hard to grow plants with good shape and architecture so they really show off the blooms.”
Retail customers are welcomed into the greenhouse each spring and encouraged to explore the wide selection of plants throughout the space. The team remains nearby to answer questions and help customers find what they need, while still allowing visitors the freedom to browse.
“You can go to a box store and see maybe 50 red geraniums,” Andy says. “Or you can come out here and see a whole lot more than that and pick the exact one you want.”
To build stronger connections with customers, the greenhouse has also started hosting workshops and greenhouse tours.
“We started doing some classes last year,” Andy says. “We just did a small planter class.”
This year the team is expanding those activities, including a production tour that allows visitors to see how plants move through the greenhouse from pot filling to transplanting.
Strawberry Plugs Take the Spotlight
While spring bedding plants bring color to the greenhouse early in the season, strawberry plug production has become a defining part of the McNitt Growers operation.
Today, McNitt Growers is recognized as the largest strawberry plug nursery in Illinois, producing fall plug plants that are shipped to farms across the United States.
“A traditional greenhouse would grow mums and poinsettias after spring,” Andy explains. “We grow strawberries instead.”
The process begins with runners, which are unrooted strawberry cuttings that arrive during the summer.
“I take a runner that comes out of Canada as an unrooted cutting, put it into a 50-count plug tray, and grow roots on it.”
Plug plants give strawberry growers a well-rooted transplant that establishes quickly in the field and allows farms to hit critical fall planting windows.
For Andy, the definition of a high-quality plug is clear.
“A premium plug means a fully rooted, uniform plant with balanced top growth and zero tolerance for disease.”
Production is scheduled carefully to match each farm’s planting window, so growers receive plants exactly when they need them.
Consistency Starts from the Ground Up
Across all crops at McNitt Growers, consistency begins with the growing media.
The greenhouse relies on PRO-MIX® BX, which provides a dependable foundation for plant production.
“It gives us a baseline,” Andy says. “If it’s consistent from year to year and bale to bale, it makes my life easier.”
Uniform texture, moisture retention, and proper aeration are critical when producing plug plants where root development is essential.
McNitt Growers has also adopted 135-cubic-foot compressed PRO-MIX® mega bales, which help streamline the potting process.
“We’ve evolved into using the 135 compressed bales,” Andy explains. “They give me a little more time in the day because I have to feed the soil beast a lot less often.”
Earlier in the greenhouse’s history, soil handling required much more manual labor.
“We started out filling baskets with one person and a scoop,” Andy says. “Then we moved to a small potting machine, and eventually to a much better potting machine that lets us do it efficiently.”
An Industry Built on Relationships
For Andy, one of the most rewarding aspects of horticulture is the community surrounding it.
“It’s really cool to see the friendships and connections we’ve built across the industry,” he says. “When you go to something like Cultivate, you run into nothing but friendly people.”
Those relationships also help when challenges arise.
“There are always problems that come up,” Andy says. “When you know the people you’re working with, you can have a real conversation and solve the problem quicker.”
In the end, Andy believes the greenhouse business is built on trust.
“People buy from people.”
Growing Like a Rock Star
When asked what legacy he hopes to leave behind at McNitt Growers, Andy focuses on something simple.
“I hope people say we treated them fairly, offered a good product, and built great relationships with our customers and suppliers.”
In an industry built on trust, consistency, and collaboration, that kind of reputation says everything. For Andy McNitt and the team at McNitt Growers, growing plants is about building relationships, sharing knowledge, and continuing to improve the operation year after year.
To learn more about McNitt Growers, their spring bedding plants, or their fall-produced strawberry plugs, visit them online, follow them on Facebook, and stop by the greenhouse in Carbondale, Illinois.
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