Melissa Miller, the agricultural teacher and FFA adviser, has been overseeing the Berlin High School greenhouse. On March 1, students from different classes and FFA helped plant different kinds of plants and flowers in the greenhouse. While planting she is trying to teach students how to take care of plants the right way.
“Students should learn how to properly care for different plants because some plants require more sun or water where others might require less,” Miller said.
The greenhouse is a single rectangular room with tables lining the sides full of plants. With a decent amount of space to work with, Miller has room for many plants.
“We have bell peppers, tomatoes, begonias, petunias, celosia, fuschias, dusty miller, lantana, impatiens, dracena spikes, marigolds and a few others. We get them as plugs (baby plants) from Westel Greenhouse,” Miller said.
Once the plants reach what is called the bedding stage of growing, the students are able to sell the plants to the community.
“Plant sale will be Saturday May 11 8 a.m. – 12 p.m. or till we sell out of plants,” Miller said.
When the plant sale is over the FFA officer board will use the money primarily for field trips and whatever else they feel is worth spending the money on.
Before students were able to start the planting process there was work to be done in the greenhouse, like welding up hanging baskets on existing tables and making a new bracing that would support the watering system. These repairs were made by Bret Steffen, the tech and engineering teacher, and some of his students.
“There were about six metals students who helped for various parts. They had the basic skills and the experience would help them become better metal workers,” Steffen said.
This way it benefited both the students working toward the plant sale and the students in the metals class. More plants were able to be planted in a better, more efficient space, and the students working on it had more practice to become better metal workers.
“They worked on it mainly during class, but some came in at lunch time as well,” Steffen said.
The greenhouse is not the only thing that the metals class has worked on to help others.
“We try to help with whatever we can, from quick weld jobs to larger things like the greenhouse project. Typically we help with quick repair jobs of tools and other metal items for the school district,” Steffen said.
The main student that has been incharge of the greenhouse is sophomore Blake Mertens. Mertens has worked for four years at the Blocks Farm in Green Lake, making him more knowledgeable about plants.
“I work in a greenhouse so it’s like second nature to me,” Mertens said.
Martens became in charge of the greenhouse because of that previous experience with another greenhouse.
“Mrs. Miller didn’t have any prior knowledge. It was also something all of the people could participate in,” Mertens said.
There are two other students that have been helping him out the most and that is Layton Sobieski and Keira LaSure. Next year there will be twice the amount of hanging baskets than there is now, which would bring their total to 150.
“This was a great team effort that was able to use materials on hand and not only save the district money, but make way better use of the greenhouse,” Steffen said.
