 More than 170 varieties of plants offered in 2006!
 We
start our
earliest
seed-planting in January. Untreated seeds are sown into a mixture of
mushroom
compost and peat moss. The seeds are incubated in a very warm
environment and moved into the greenhouse when sprouting has occured.
There they are grown in warm days and comparatively cool nights.
The only fertilizer used is fish emulsion. In time the plants are
shifted into four-packs and eventually into their individual 2.5 inch
pots, where they establish themselves prior to shipping.
We like to give the pl
 ants two weeks or
so in their final pots. This gives them time to establish fully without
becoming too large to ship. (Our protective packaging allows a maximum
height of about 11 inches.) We ship only actively growing plants with
root systems that have just filled their pot; we never ship root-bound
specimens that may have slowed their growth.For pest control we rely on insecticidal soaps if necessary or other non-chemical alternatives. We find that good sanitation practices keep pests to a minimum. But since we use no "hard-pesticides," occasional greenhouse pests, such as aphids, could occasionally appear. It is a good practice for you to inspect each plant fully upon receipt, and quarantine them temporarily to protect your other plants. Naturally we never knowingly ship pests with our plants, and would replace or refund if such an event were to occur. Plants are usually shipped directly from our greenhouse, with no "hardening-off" period prior to shipping. It is the customer's responsibilty to acclimatize the plants prior to setting out in the garden. Sometimes we have only a very few seeds of a rare variety. In this case we may start the seeds very early and offer cutting-grown plants for sale. When offering cutting-grown plants, we state this fact in their descriptions. Cutting grown plants are fully viable and as true-to-type as their parent; selling cutting-grown plants allows us to offer rare varieties even when very few seeds are available. Occasionally our plants start from seed that we have grown here at Abundant Acres. We never save seed from a single plant, and rogue any off-types prior to allowing seed to set. Our typical growouts consist of 10-20 plants of a variety. We enjoy our grow-outs because they allow us to trial some of the varieties we are offering.  |
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