July 20, 2020

Not So GRACEful Gardening

Introduction

Hello Everybody! My name is Grace, and I am the Retail Store Manager at Rohrer Seeds in Lancaster, PA. This “Not so Graceful Gardening” blog will focus on all the ups and downs of gardening and hopefully allow readers to gain useful knowledge about how to care for their garden and everything in it. We will be connecting with both gardeners and farmers alike, to learn about the best practices and share ideas about the world of gardening! I encourage readers to reach out and share their gardening stories, as I feel it is important that we work together to both enjoy the pleasures and conquer the challenges of gardening.

About Rohrer Seeds

If you haven’t heard of us before, Rohrer Seeds is a one-of-a-kind seed company located in the beautiful Lancaster County Pennsylvania. Our company has been around for over 100 years, after being established by P.L. Rohrer in 1919. Today the company is still family-owned, with Doug Rohrer as our current president. Although we continue to grow and change in many ways, we continue to focus on our goal of providing the best seeds for gardeners and homeowners. If you ever have the chance to come to our store, you will see an impressive selection of seeds, including garden, turf, wildlife, and cover crop seed.

We pride ourselves in offering over 1,600 different varieties of seeds and are thankful to have the opportunity to offer seeds from several other companies, in addition to our own. Bringing a large selection and variety to our customers all in one place is extremely important to us, as it allows customers to understand what options are out there and gives them more choices as to what they want to grow. We also offer a large amount of gardening supplies to provide the best growing and gardening experience possible. In addition to our retail store, we also focus on retail sales through our easy-to-use website and colorful catalog. We also act as a wholesaler to many home and garden stores throughout the northeast.

About Myself

Joining the Rohrer Seeds team back in November of 2019 was an exciting and challenging new endeavor for me! Although I grew up heavily involved in the agriculture industry, vegetable and flower production were never on my radar. Passionate about a little bit of everything having to do with agriculture growing up, most of my experiences revolved around the dairy, livestock, and equine industries. I completed my degree in agricultural business and found myself unsure about what I really wanted to focus on as a career. One thing I knew was that I was passionate about business, and I have always loved a good challenge!

Finding the chance to try something new and to be involved in the growth and improvement of a successful business, stood out to me as a unique opportunity for a young graduate looking for my first professional career. Since then I have found myself immersed in learning the inner workings of the company as well as challenging myself to absorb as much information about everything we sell at Rohrer Seeds. As you can probably imagine, working in a seed store instilled a lot of desire in me to have my own garden and form my own opinions and knowledge about the products.

Starting out, I made some of the most common and basic gardening mistakes, even though I knew better. My first classic mistake was making the garden too big! Although thankful to have land and resources available to me, I probably got a little ahead of myself for my first year. From there, lots of trial and error and A LOT of weeding have brought me to the middle of the summer, where I find myself enjoying the harvest and planning how I can do things better next year.

Why Garden?

With a passion for soil health and sustainable agriculture, I hope to help home gardeners understand the real meaning of producing food at home and being able to properly care for the soil. Local food production cuts out a lot of unnecessary waste, transportation, and processing that surrounds the food industry today, making it increasingly important for homegrown food. Many home gardeners find soil health to be a tricky subject, but with a little understanding of basic nutrients and the other basic principles, anyone can create a good impact on their soil. On top of that, gardening is FUN! Spending time outside and finally reaching that point where your favorite flower or vegetable is ready to harvest is always so rewarding.