810-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 26, 1994
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BETH MILLER
Cumberland Co. Correspondent
WILLIAMS GROVE (Cum
berland Co.) Now that spring
Anally is nerc, it is time to plant
the seeds that will give us the
flowers and vegetables we can en
joy this summer.
Linda Green is an expert at that
She is the person who plants all
the seeds at Ashcombe’s Green
houses.
Green has some tips for you to
use when you plant seeds at home.
First, she said, you should go to
your garden store or local green
house and buy a seed planting ger
mination mixture made up of peat
moss, perlite, and vermiculite.
Green said you can plant your
seeds in almost any container that
is at least 2 inches deep. The con
tainer also must have holes in it to
give drainage when you water
your seeds.
To start, you should fill most of
the container with the planting
mix and then moisten that mix.
Then you should place the seeds
on the surface of the mix and cov
er them with a layer of dry plant
ing mixture.
The dry mix can then be mois
tened with a spray bottle. The next
step is to cover the containers with
clear plastic wrap to keep the
seeds warm while they start to
sprout.
The plastic wrap also keeps the
moisture in to help the seeds grow.
Once the seeds are planted, they
should be placed at a light source,
like a sunny window. The plastic
wrap should be removed as soon
as the plants pop up through the
soil.
The soil has to be kept moist so
the seeds should be checked at
least once a day to make sure they
have enough moisture.
Label each pot so you know
what type of seeds you planted in
the container.
Some plants are easier to grow
than others, she said. Your local
nursery will be able to tell you
what kinds of seeds will be the
easiest for your children to grow.
Although almost any container
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Time For Kids To
can be used to plant seeds. Peat
pots are good to use if you are
growing plants that do not like to
have their roots disturbed when
the time comes to plant them out
side. The plants can be transplant
ed right in the peat pots because
the pots will decompose and be
come part of the soil.
Green said you can get mote so
phisticated with your seed plant
ing by using heat trays and fluor
escent lights. Garden stores sell all
kinds of seed planting kits you
might like to try.
Green gets mighty fancy when
she plants thousands of seeds each
year at Ashcombe’s where she has
worked for 20 years.
She showed her process at a
special display at the front of the
store. The display is called “It’s
Spring, Let’s Sow Some Seeds.”
She said she plants most of the
seeds for Ashcombe’s with a ma
chine that is called an EZ Seeder.
Most commercial greenhouses use
those machines, she said.
Green uses the EZ Seeder to
plant the seeds in small plug trays.
When the plants are big enough,
they are transplanted to larger
cellpacks. The cellpacks are the
containers that people buy the
plants in.
But there is a lot of work to be
done to make the plants grow so
they can be sold. Right after the
seeds are planted, they are placed
in a temperature-controlled cham
ber where the temperature always
is kept at 70 degrees.
As the seeds sprout they are
gradually moved to the green
houses.
Green cautions that people
should not be too eager to plant
the plants they grow themselves or
the ones they buy at their local
greenhouses.
Even if the temperature in the
daytime is warm, the cold nights
in early spring still can hurt or kill
plants that are planted outdoors
100 soon in the year, she said.
Green said that in this area she
does not recommend that any
plants be planted outdoors before
May 10 when all the danger of
frost is past.
Ashcombe’s seed planter, Linda Green, shows how she plants
for the nursery.
After a day at the greenhouse, Madison Miller and Amanda Myers are ready to try
their hands at planting some seeds.
Plant Seeds
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