Lil’ Sprouts Plant Farm

To read this blog lately, you’d think I never shop anywhere but nurseries and greenhouses.

This time of year, you’d be right.

Last spring, I found a new haunt right here in Red Fork: Lil’ Sprouts Plant Farm.

John and Mary McClain and their faithful sidekick, a scruffy-looking terrier mix named Muffin, raise thousands of petunias, begonias, portulaca, tomatoes, peppers, and other garden goodies in a hoop house in a quiet neighborhood a few blocks away from Red Fork Baptist Church.

On a recent afternoon, I bought a six-pack of scarlet begonias and two gorgeous hanging baskets of what appear to be tiny purple petunias. The whole order set me back $26 — $2 for the begonias and $12 apiece for the hanging baskets. I went back a week later and picked up a hanging basket of portulaca for $8.

All the plants I’ve bought from McClain have been healthy and vigorous, and a walk through his hoop house — which is packed with colorful flowers hanging from the ceiling and covering big tables that run the length of the place — is a visual treat.

I didn’t have my camera handy on either of our visits this year, so you’ll have to settle for the pictures I shot of the plants after I got them home … but this Tulsa World article from last spring includes a photo of Muffin and her owners inside the greenhouse.

Getting there is a little tricky, but McClain has signs up on weekends to help customers find their way to the property at 2485 W. 37th Place. To get there, follow Southwest Boulevard to 41st Street (right by Ollie’s Station Restaurant). Go up over the 41st Street overpass and hang a right on South 29th Avenue West, then make another right onto West 37th Place and follow it four blocks to Lil’ Sprouts.

Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday from early spring through mid-June. Mary McClain said she and John can usually be persuaded to open at off hours by special request. During the summer, McClain has also been known to sell homegrown produce from sheets of plywood in his front yard, about half a block west of the greenhouse.

For more information, call 446-4696.

Grades:
Value: A
Product: A
Service: A
Convenience: B
Overall: A-

~ by redforkhippie on April 29, 2007.