Plant sale a chance to showcase skills

Timothy Newcomb
Tribune assistant editor

  LYNDEN -- From photosynthesis to hydroponics, Lynden High School students are learning the ins and outs of horticulture.
  Roughly 60 students are enrolled in two horticulture classes each second semester at LHS. Teacher Ladd Shumway said that a greenhouse was built with the high school in 1980, so horticulture classes have been a staple at LHS since at least that time.
  The curriculum covers everything from basic soil and plant science to parts and functions. Students are required to learn hydroponics and grow vegetables in their own hydroponic bucket. They also create and grow baskets and other bedding plants for the annual LHS plant sale, this year on May 1-3.
  Every student designs and plants six baskets for sale at the plant sale and has 10 flats of zonal geraniums or other miscellaneous annuals they are growing for the sale.
  Students use different height and color themes for their baskets. Kristie George explained that she is creating a harmonious basket by mixing colors that are similar on the color wheel for one basket and then contrasting color for another basket.
  Shumway said that mixing plants that mound and trail give different baskets different looks, something the students were required to design.
  But the students don’t just toss the plants in the greenhouse and go along on their way. Shumway has them checking the pH levels, testing soil nutrients, plant nutrients, fertilizer levels and a variety of things to ensure that the plants are being properly cared far.
  The entire process not only helps the students create quality products for the plant sale, but it also teaches them the steps they need to know if they were to work in a greenhouse professionally.
  Hydroponics -- the method of growing plants, usually vegetables, in nutrient-rich water instead of soil -- is an ever-increasing industry trend and one that Shumway wants his students to know.
  Each student is growing vegetables in his or her own hydroponic bucket, learning to check the appropriate levels in the nutrients of the water.
  Shumway said that hydroponic growing has become the accepted way to mass grow vegetables because it takes less space and eliminates the possibility of soil diseases.
  The big business of greenhouse growing just north of the Canadian border from Whatcom County is done solely with hydroponics.
  Shumway said the practice not only gives students a sense of how the industry works, but also a sense of the “wow” of growing plants without soil.
  Students Nathan McQuarrie and Cory Shanahan are even in charge of growing the class’s bumper crop of hydroponic tomatoes. “It is fun to have fresh tomatoes this time of year,” Shumway said. “We started in November and they will get way up into the rafters.”
  Both students said it has been interesting to learn how to take care of the plants. They even change pH levels and fix nutrient levels, McQuarrie said. He added that the students are in charge of vibrating the leaves of the tomatoes to encourage pollination, the usual role of bees.
  Shumway said that the plant materials for the sale and the class were purchased from the two VanWingerden nurseries in Whatcom County. He said that he is grateful for the willingness of the Van Wingerden family to work with the students, sell them small orders and welcome them in for field trips.
  The plant sale will run from noon to 6 p.m. May 1 and 2 and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on May 3 at the LHS greenhouse.
  E-mail Timothy Newcomb at tim@lyndentribune.com.