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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Students Learn By Growing

Never mind the smell of fish fertilizer. Never mind that the greenhouse was so crowded with zinnias, marigolds and tomato plants, East Valley High School students had to move carefully - or send a flat of plants flying to the floor., The scientific research of students Jenny Howald and Cynthia Williams is a success. Under the guidance of EVHS biology teacher John Swett, the two seniors have learned horticulture and greenhouse management, then designed and taught a basic horticulture course to four other students.

The tomatoes look healthy and ready to brave the outdoors, at least as soon as our nighttime temps warm up a bit. The marigolds and zinnias are budding up nicely.

Partners Howald and Williams are frank about their failures, too.

The pansies are puny. The hollyhocks still look a bit runty.

“One thing we would pass along to next year’s group is when to plant different things,” Williams said.

The pansy seeds should go in right after Christmas vacation, they learned, not at the end of February.

The sunflowers, which have the stringy look of unloved children, were a bad idea, they say. “No more sunflowers,” agrees Sweet.

Each year, the East Valley greenhouse gets a bit more sophisticated. The first year, Swett says, “We killed everything.”

The first warm spring day, temperatures in the greenhouse reached 100 degrees, plus. Blinds for the windows helped prevent a repeat.

Howald and Williams got their share of learning the hard way:

Transplanting hundreds of seedlings from ponies to four-inch pots was hard work. Aphids swept through their crops, devastating many plants. And they lost more to faulty watering techniques - some plants were watered too much, others too little.

Now they insist on a plant-by-plant watering routine that, with several hundred plants, takes two or three people about 20 minutes.

But the peskiest pests of all, they say, have been a couple of birds - subjects of another research project - that have had the run - the fly? - of the greenhouse. The birds helped themselves to newly sown seed. And once the baby plants came up, the birds helped themselves again.

“They took little bites out all over,” Howald said, searching for a plant that still bore bite marks.

The four students keep a daily journal on their experiences. They’ve enjoyed the planting and watching the plants grow.

Delivering sold plants to teachers around the EVHS building is this week’s big chore. Proceeds will go for next year’s supplies: dirt, pots, seed.

Next year’s horticulturists also will get firm instructions: Water each plant carefully without over-watering. Lobby Mr. Swett for a better fan. Switch locks on the greenhouse door so no pranksters can repeat this year’s trick of pulling up all the tags that specified which type of tomatoes and marigolds were which.

And keep those birds in the cage at planting time.

, DataTimes