Plugging Along

     I need to give a bit of history about our clan.  We are plant “plugs.”  Before we were invented, greenhouse plants were seeded into open flats and germinated there, where the plants were laboriously separated from each other to be planted into pots.  We plugs are seeded, one seed per small cell or compartment.  When our roots are mature, we can be plucked from the small cell and be moved easily into a larger pot. We plants love it, because our roots stay together in the cell and we can keep growing without any “transplant shock.”
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     We weren’t invented until the 1980s and the growers at Glacial Ridge Growers very quickly latched onto our technology.  We plugs can be transplanted quickly by hand but can also be moved by the robotic fingers of a transplanting machine.  I hate to say it, but plugs have totally revolutionized the greenhouse industry.  We come in a variety of sizes, from around four-hundred in a ten-inch by twenty-inch tray to much larger sized plugs in the same sized tray.  There are 128-sized plugs, 72-sized plugs, and even larger plugs that might accommodate trees. Now, in March, many of us are being moved up to our final-size pot.  We will be growing until we get moved to our final place outdoors; plugging along to be enjoyed by many happy gardeners.