E2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 9,1982 BY JOYCE BUPP Staff Correspondent MECHANICSBURG - It’s not at all unusual to see visitors strolling through the Farm Show’s array of equipment and livestock, toting along with them a green plant or two, or perhaps wearing a jaunty corsage of fresh blooms. Those plants probably came from the booths- housing the Pennsylvania Florists and Flower Growers Association. Through the sales of a variety of fohage and flowering plants, plus cut flowers, all donated by growers and retailers from across the state, funds are raised for horticultural research. One contributor to this annual research fund raising is Ashcombe Greenhouses, a giant grower wholesale-retail complex at Grantham, in Cumberland County. Ashcombe is operated by Glenn Gross, who opened his horticulture business in 1956 with one greenhouse and 25 acres of wholesaling vegetable crops. A few years later, a greenhouse for retailing went up. As the business continued to flourish, Gross’s retail vegetable sales boomed; and in 1962, the first Ashcombe roadside market was born. By 1973, other greenhouses had been added to the growing business, and an American public, weary of the war and riots of the decade of the ‘6o’s, went on a back to-nature gardening binge. It was a greenery movement that spelled good news for Ashcombe. Today, the complex sprawls off m all directions, round-roofed houses sprouting up along parking lots, landscaped mini-gardens set here and there across the site, and equipment and employees hustling around, potting, planting, and taking care of the steady stream of wholesale and retail buyers. . Spread through a spacious retail section, hundreds of meticulously groomed plants beckon even the most reluctant green-thumber to fill a cart with anything from elegant orchids to miniature cactus, pots and planters in any size imaginable, and farm-fresh goodies like Ashcombe Dairy ice. York County’s 4-H potato judges are picky will be, front, Jon Haskins, second row from about their spuds. Putting their potato left, Mike and Tim Fetrow and back from left, pointers to work at Farm Show competition Sonny Ruhlman and Robert Haskins. Ashcombe Greenhouses offer plants cream, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Off-limits to the retail buyer are the growing houses, although wholesalers are allowed through certain of those sections. Two dozen greenhouses, five of them newly completed, create growing climates ranging from cool, airy rooms filled with spring primroses just showing color, to the desert-warm cactus area., About four acres are enclosed in plastic over wooden or metal frames at the Cumberland County complex, near the Yellow Breeches famed trout fishing holes. .Several miles north, at Shermansdale in Perry County, another three-quarters acre of houses is devoted primarily to cultivating spring bedding plants, plus some seasonal bloomers and hanging basket specimens. Efficiency is the watchword in the intensive cropping world <Jf greenhouse agriculture. Heat, light, and labor must all be directed toward .that crucial end, plants at their peak when the customer wants them. A week delay on bulbs forced for the Easter trade, for instance, could write off most of the sales of that .installed an "energy curtain,” a retail crop. - heavy fabric, coated on one side To cut- down on unnecessary with a silvery finish. It slides steps by the up to 50 at peak time across a frame built much lower employee staff, Ashcombe has one than the normal ceiling, confining interesting time-saver built into heat to a smaller area, plus the growing complex. It’s an creating the artificial darkness overhead track from which double- needed by light-sensitive plants to decker carts - hang suspended, set bloom . Those carte hold Several flats, or a Heating' * Ashcombe -' with its couple of dozen large pots, while an present propane and fuel oil employee-can 'handle only a flat ’or > systems now runs near $6OO a L day two at one time. Carts are loaded through the winter months. To hold with plants to be moved, and the line on heat “costs. Gross is pushed along to the potting or converting the heating system to retail areas as needed. one 0 f coal-fired hot water. He One space-saver in the newer notes that; although obtaining fuel houses is a series of sliding tables, 01 j has never been a problem, the built from snow fencmg and heavy ever-climbing cost of petroleum, pipes. The tables can be slid back plus possibilities of- future scar and forth on pipe supports, for- cities, remain a -threat to a ming crosswalks wherever greenhouse owner’s budget, needed, rather than building Houses are covered with double permanent cross aisles that steal layers of polyethylene sheeting, valuable heated growing space. creating a dead air space of in- Heat is one of the biggest sulation sandwiched--between the headaches of any cold-climate layers. Poly film has a benefit over greenhouse operator. glass in that it will deflate before -In some houses, like the poin- the structure would collapse in a settia cropping area, Gross has At Farm Show’s for fund raising A sort of miniature Mohave climate in cactus house is a haven of warmth and is Cumberland County, Ashecombe Farms with plants of interesting growth patterns. ? oliage booths . Even in the mid-winter cold, living plants add touches of color to fhe outside landscaping at Ashecombe. Flowering kale, a relative of cabbage, dots the outside garden with bright lavendar, green and white accents. ' heavy wind storm, and of course, is cheaper to replace if damaged. Plastic convection bags, or the "air bags” commonly found on area livestock farms,- pre located through the houses, moving air to avoid hot and cold spots. The bulk of the vegetable, annual flowering and foliage plants sold, through the retail garden center* are grown from seeds or cutting right at the Ashcombe operation. Some specimen tropical plants, though, arrive shipped direct from growers 19 Florida. “Do not touch; stock plant,” is a sign seen frequently on large, mature parent foliage specimens, such as jade or cactus plants. Cuttings from these parent stocks are rooted mostly in the sterile mediums of perlite, a vocamc rock product, or vermicullte, and misted to keep them moist until rooted and growing well. Rooted cuttings, or seedlings ready for transplanting, go mto a growing medium custom mixed at the operation, bulk sterilized before use, and then delivered to the several potting areas via a conveyor system. Major ingredients in the soil “recipe” include peat moss, fertilizers, perlite and composted ground tree bark from the P.H. Glatfelter paper plant nearby in York ' County. Three days out of the six that Ashcombe is open, dilute fertilizer solutions feed automatically to the plants through the watering systems..Pest,control is applied only when .needed,' with careful records maintained m- case any” spray material causes an adverse effect on plant foliages.. One unusual, and difficult crop that Ashcombe starts from "scratch” is ferns. ; Many of the lush ferns hanging in the fem house", thick, fluffy and bursting with brilliant green, robust fronds, began life as tiny spores on the underside of parent ferns.. These, almost .microscopic -spores are placed 5 in a sterile growing environment, duplicating as nearly as possible the tem perature and humidity of their natural setting; . Some species of ferns are also?| propagated by runners, resembling air roots, that set tiny fem plants when anchored against a moist-growing medium. * Over the past few years, says Gross, customer demand has leveled off for specimen foliage plants. However, outdoor gar dening enthusiasm seems greater (Turn to Page E 4)
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