Let it Grow, Let it Grow

For more than 30 years, the Ohio County FFA Greenhouse has been growing plants and flowers to sell to the people of the county as well as providing high school students with an educational experience.

While the plants and flowers grown in the greenhouse help the students raise money, they also provide them a way to learn. Greg Hillard, an agriculture teacher at OCHS, said it allows students to learn propagation methods, planting methods and seeding. The students grow all the greenhouse’s vegetable plants from seeds as well as some of the flowers. The greenhouse’s bridal veil plants were all propagated by the students. They took cuttings from one plant and made about 20 plants, Hillard said. Other items are grown from plugs they obtained from suppliers that arrive during the winter months.

While the greenhouse sells vegetable plants, flowers, hanging baskets and other plants, ferns are considered a stable to the program, said Hillard.

“Ferns have always been our staple,” he said. “We have the ability to grow them in the wintertime … We sell a lot of ferns.”

Hillard said approximately 1,000 ferns come out of the facility per year. Ferns are the first thing the students begin working on at the start of the school year. From August until fall break, Hillard said, the students will pot ferns every day.

Each potted fern sold each year has three plants in them. While some of those plants are given to other high school programs to get started or traded with other facilities for additional items for OCHS to sell, the majority are sold through the FFA’s greenhouse.

The greenhouse, which opened to the public April 14, is already down to about 100 ferns. The rest have either been purchased or were traded to other schools.

There are currently about 75-80 students in the Ohio County FFA program. As a freshman, students come in and take an intro to agriculture class where they are introduced to the greenhouse. Traditionally, their sophomore year would be when they would take intro to greenhouse followed by greenhouse and then also landscaping.

OCHS also offers a class called crop science which offers a student six hours of college credit through Murray State University. In all, a student is offered four years, including college credit, in the program – three of those years spent working in the greenhouse.

“One of the cool things is all of the students who graduate from Ohio County have to be college and career ready or career ready. This program does prepare them for career readiness,” Hillard said.

Students have two options, Hillard said. At the end of their four years, they will take an end-of-program assessment. If they pass that verifies them as career ready. They can also use the certificate for passing the assessment to get three additional hours of college elective credit. They can also take a certification test. If they pass that test, they become industry certified, which also counts as career ready.

“It is still a growing program. It has changed and kind of molded with the times,” Hillard said. “More than trying to make a maximum profit (in the greenhouse), we try to make it an educational facility and we pay the bills and we have plenty to do the other things we need to do with.”

Money raised yearly at the greenhouse varies from year to year based on wholesale prices and crop success. Profits pay for supplies with the remainder helping to fund FFA projects and activities.

The Ohio County FFA Greenhouse is open from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. now through the Friday prior to Mother’s Day. Admission into the greenhouse is only permitted after school hours. Social distancing and masks are required.