Devin & Eric’s BLOG

NOVEMBER 9th-11^th,

2012 

Hello all, it’s the boys from the Fanshawe Horticulture Program Devin and Eric! After some of the worst planning that we’ve ever done, this is the second consecutive weekend of learning practical’s….. We must admit it’s not that bad as we are learning everything to know about Horticulture in a practical way, but 6:30 am mornings for three weeks straight doesn’t seem fun to anyone, with maybe one exception MR. PASCOE!

On this fairly cold and pretty grey Friday, we are here at 7:50am to get ready and understand our task for the weekend, “OPERATION CLEAN GREENHOUSE: Down to the 9’s”. I must say it is pretty cool that we are both running the Greenhouse by ourselves with no supervision as it allows us to get a real feel in what it’s like to actually run a full operation! After receiving our list of tasks, we began prioritizing everything by listing them due to importance and if they needed to be cultured at any certain point over the weekend.

This is the final weekend before the big sale of Poinsettias that the Horticulture Students collectively grew, so of course we decided that any nurturing of the Poinsettias and cleaning up of the Greenhouse was to be left till Sunday, as it would’ve been really stupid to blow a day cleaning and pruning the Poinsettias when things could get messy and just die on us again!

Friday

First task of the weekend was to get the Poinsettias watered so they can maintain their fullness and of course that beautiful colour. We both agree that they are looking quite spectacular this year and should do very well at the Poinsettia Sale!

Leaving the water lines to irrigate our beautiful crop, we proceeded to transfer all the rooted cuttings in our propagation chamber so we than could clean it out and disinfect it later on in the day.

Potting, as well as transferring the plants into 4” pots were also among the top priorities for the weekend. Devin was the mastermind behind all the planting all day, and even for stratifying the “Pawpaw” seeds we had received from Jack. He meticulously mixed them into a cactus mix (80% ProMix, 20% sand) and then placed them into the fridge for 60-90 days to stratify! Eric was the cleaner, pulling out every last OCD molecule is his body to scrub the damp, algae covered, wood and stainless steel in the propagation chamber with a 10% bleach/soap mix to ensure it was completely clean and disinfected.

Saturday

Saturday was a little bit of drizzly day, but what’s the weather to a Horticulturist right? Oh wait, we were inside a greenhouse…. Oh!!! No we weren’t because we had to walk around and collect samples all day today! The Poinsettia crop, although breathtaking already, does in fact need a bit of dressing up in the pot so we have set out to collect 50 Hydrangea PG stem and flower, 50 Hydrangea Annabelle stem and seed heads, 200 Pinus strobus branchlets, 100 Pinus strobus cones, 100 Picea abies cones, 100 Pinus sylvestris cones! Unfortunately, were unable to locate the 50 Cornus alba sibirica branches! (Search the common names on GOOGLE, I sure as hell had too when I first started out) This did a real number on the both the knees as walking a college campus looking for plants (as fun as it sounds) is quite a workout!

Sunday

Ah and now to the cleaning day, the day where we would take a majority of our day to clean and culture everything in the Greenhouse and I mean EVERYTHING! Starting off in our Tractor Bay, we worked our way in the Greenhouse section by section: scrubbing, bleaching, wiping, dusting, vacuuming and of course mopping every last piece of surface and sign we could see. We disinfected our potting tables and then moved out to finally culture the Poinsettia crop.

We disinfected our potting tables and then moved out to finally culture the Poinsettia crop. Our job was to simply remove any dead or decaying leaves from the pot itself or off of the plant to sure its absolute best looking stature.

Blog

Emilio & Pedro

Friday, 2 November 2012

Me, Emilio and Pedro took out the all annuals around fanshawe, weed the beds, edge and if needed we mulch the beds. We start outside the security office on the two retaining wall beds; we weed and mulch the bed after taking out the annuals. Then we took outthe annual out of the planters around the entrance if it had any grasses or cannas we brought them to get propagated. After that we did the sign bed near the bus stop.

We did the exact same thing with this bed but we had to edge it and we didn’t have enough time to finish mulching. But we did get most of the planters done all we have left to do is the around about near the book store.

Saturday 3 November 2012

I and Pedro finished mulching the sign bed

We than went to another bed and took out some annuals and weed it. After that we finish the rest of the planters today.  We thought it was a good idea to spilt up and do different beds to save time and we decided that we weren’t going to mulch anymore because it was taking too long without the trailer what is broken. So I did the flag bed at the around about and he did the sign bed at Cheapside road entrance we almost finish our beds.

Sunday 4 November 2012

This Sunday was crazy me and Pedro pull 13 hour shift trying to get everything done. We finish our beds then after that we hustle to finish 4 other beds.

We final came to our last main task it is 4:20pm at this point we have therip out the Ribesodoratum.Let me tell you that took so strength the roots spread was incredible and 4 inch thick and garden was big like we probably rip out at least 20 of Ribes. I and Pedro hit a learning curve and the process of ripping out the Ribes. We realize that you can’t garden in the dark because you can see nothing. In the end we finish half at 9:00pm and garden still doesn’t look great because we can’t see anything. 

Poinsettia “Toning” by Stacy Meyerink and Elissa Sutton

We began our Greenhouse Practical this weekend at the Spriet Family Greenhouse, our main focus for the weekend was tending to the 1000 poinsettias that we have been growing since the beginning of term.  We will be selling these poinsettia’s to raise Money for the Fanshawe Horticultural Technician Program and must ensure that each plant is “Toned” correctly to make sure that they are ready for a drastic change of environment, from the warm inviting environment of the greenhouse into household plants.  

The poinsettias have been in a photoinduction period, the process by which the poinsettia go through an extended dark period followed by a light period in order to start the coloring up process.  The photoinduction period ends on November 14^th at which the Poinsettia crop will be ready for sale.

It is time to start “Toning” the poinsettia’s, we reduce fertility by gradually reducing the fertilizer levels to a third of the original strength used for active growing.  To do this we decrease fertilizer timing as well as begin the process of leaching the media to remove any access salt in the media, EC levels will be checked every week to ensure that this process is occurring in the timetable needed.  At this time we will be changing fertilizer formulation to a 12-0-44 mix.  This Particular fertilizer will increase the poinsettia’s ability to deal with stressful situations that will occur when the plant is moved from one environment to another.

It is important to reduce the fertilizer levels in the soil prior to the end of the growing process to help the poinsettias keep longer and reduce any bract browning.  Before sale we will ensure that each cultivar is watered without a fertilizer solution to reduce these salt levels.  It is also important at this time that we reduce the temperature slightly, this will harden off the poinsettia’s and create more vibrant colouration of the bracts about 1 degree Celsius a day, the final temperature before shipping should be held at 16-17 degrees Celsius. 

When you see pollen you can ship the plant, not before.  One thing that is of utmost important is the fact that poinsettia’s are intolerant to any cold temperatures.  They must be wrapped prior to leaving the greenhouse and transported directly to the end location.  Do not leave them outside, do not leave them in the car unattended, keep them warm, anything exposure to 10 degree or below will cause plant damage.