'Seed to Sale' plant sale at CV-TEC
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May 2—PLATTSBURGH — Gardeners can score big at the annual "Seed to Sale" hosted by the CV-TEC Environmental Conservation and Forestry Program beginning on May 3 at the Plattsburgh Main Campus building located at 1585 Military Turnpike.
All are welcome to come visit and shop beginning Tuesday at 9:15 a.m.
The shop will be open from 9:15 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. as well as 12:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. May 3 through May 6.
An assortment of vegetables, herbs, annuals, and perennials will be available until all items are sold out.
A total of 10 to 15 shoppers at a time will be allowed.
Students will escort participants from the school lobby area to the classroom to browse and make purchases.
CV-TEC asks that all participants understand that this plant sale is part of the school's educational process.
Masks are optional for this event.
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
"The students, they order the seed as early as December," Jennifer Parker, Environmental Conservation & Forestry teacher, at Champlain Valley Educational Services, said.
"It's a project-based learning for our students. They order the seeds. Once the seeds come in, they germinate the seeds. They transplant, water and maintain the greenhouse. Every May, the first Tuesday in May, we open our classroom doors to the public to come in and to shop for a great assortment of perennials, annuals, hanging baskets, vegetables, or you name it, we have it."
LIMITED STOCK
Vegetables include different varieties of tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and cauliflower.
Annuls and perennials include dianthus, digitalis, rudebeckia, pansies and petunias.
"Things you typically find in a local greenhouse, but we do it on a much smaller scale," Parker said.
"The quantity of the stock we have is very limited. Once all the product is gone, we close up shop for the year. Then, we'll reopen again next year. Every year, we look forward to our students working with the customers as they come in and shop. They get the customer service skills, working with money."
The program is more than 30 years old and is an Ag related program.
"So anything that is Ag related in the North Country, we do a little bit of it," she said.
"So, we have a forestry based maple syrup production, a little bit of horticulture."
Students get to decide what area they want to focus on during their second year of the two-year program.
"Students will come in as a junior and stay until their senior year," she said.
"We're a half-day program. A lot of our students will go on to college."
A New York State Conservation Competition will be held May 19 at Paul Smith's College.
"Where students will compete against other students from Tech programs across New York state, about 400 of them, to showcase their skills and for scholarship money available and so forth," Parker said.
"Seed to Sale" proceeds will go directly to CVES BOCES treasurer.
"The money eventually gets reinvested back into our program to keep up with technology," she said.
"We work with our business and industry partners closely twice a year. They guide us and steer us to what we could use to keep our programs updated."
PROGRAMS COLLABORATION
Thirty students participated in the project.
"We are inviting other programs the day of our plant sale to assist us," she said.
"We have the Business Management Program that's going to be assisting us with moving customers from the lobby area to our classroom. Our Security and Law Program will assist us with customers in the parking lot. Even though it's part of the Environmental, Conservation and Forestry Program, we get a lot of the different programs involved.
"We have the Carpentry Program who has built these big raised garden beds, and they're going to be selling those out of the classroom as well, and it coincides with our program."
Email Robin Caudell:
Twitter:@RobinCaudell
