Three generations,
one stubborn little greenhouse.

The Plantorium started the way most good things do — out of necessity and a little bit of stubbornness. In the spring of 1971, our grandfather stretched plastic over a hoop frame in the side yard and planted out a few flats of tomatoes. He sold what the family couldn't eat to neighbors who drove up the gravel lane.

Fifty years later, that hoop house has multiplied into a row of greenhouses that warm up early in February while the snow is still on the foothills. The gravel lane is paved. The customers are now the grandchildren of the neighbors. But we still grow nearly everything ourselves, from seed and cutting, in the dirt right behind the shop.

We're not a chain. We don't get a truck of plants delivered from somewhere in California. The annual you take home in May was probably a one-inch sprout in March, sitting on a heat mat next to our coffee pot.