Weekend Duty Travis Madill and Chris Potten

Friday March 25^th, 2016:

We arrived at the greenhouse for 7:50 AM, walked the crop, and completed the checklist.  A tray of Fuchsia ‘Gartenmeister Bonstedt’ and a half tray of Thyme Fuchsia cuttings were taken. Additional cuttings were taken before the hanging baskets were hung back up. Silver Spurflower and Fruity Sage were also taken, one tray of each.  The trays of seedlings were a bit dry so they were watered. The healthy stock baskets were hung back up, and attached to the emitters. Recovering ones from previous cuttings were left out on the table, and some were taken off the emitters because they had been over watered and needed to dry out. Some plants were showing signs of algae growth to drooping leaves at worse. 50 hanging baskets were filled with soil, inserts, and hangers and placed on the greenhouse table. The RTV bay was swept.  One tray of Dusty Miller and a half tray of Salvia were sown. Tradescantia Palida cuttings were also taken and one tray was filled. We did a cleanup of the floor and a sweep and transferred some compost to the RTV which was transferred to the compost. We completed the closing checklist and locked the greenhouse.  Everything appears to be in good shape, no issues.    

Saturday March 26^th, 2016:

Arrived at the greenhouse at 7:50 and checked in. Walked around and checked the crop and did the opening checklist. Today we tackled the duty of filling 1,800 4 inch pots for later transplanting.  The carts were taken from the rear of the greenhouse and put together.  They were moved to the potting station where they were prepped for filled trays.  The pots and the trays were gathered and were filled with soil.  This took several hours to do, then the completed carts were staged in the RTV bay. Marigolds were separated to space them out better. The succulents were placed into a single container from 3 containers.

Sunday March 27^th, 2016:

We arrived at the greenhouse at 7:50 AM and completed the opening checklist. The following cultivars were potted up of Coleus. ‘Chaotic Rose’, ‘Kingswood Torch’, ‘Saturn’, ‘Perilla’, and ‘Flirting Skirts.’ We spot watered some of the plants that needed it. A few of the germinating trays were watered. Some of the cacti and succulents were also watered. It is a sunnier day today so we can expect to have more evapotranspiration.  The palm in A corridor (interior) and Dracaena in A corridor were treated as per the list. The first set of trays has been completed and we are soaking the second set. The second set was completed. The floor of the greenhouse was cleaned up and the closing checklist was completed and the tractor bay was swept. Pictures were taken documenting some of the major tasks which were completed. 

Kate and Nicks Weekend Blog: Greenhouse

March 18, 2016

We arrived at the greenhouse by 8:00 am and after getting a quick overview from Jeff, Nick and I got to work on our duties.  First we worked on filling out our opening day sheet recording temperature, using the infrared thermometer and the like.  We needed to wet the wick in the PRIVA box, but there was no more distilled water in any of the spray bottles so Nick got some out of the chemical room and we wrote up a new bottle.  Afterwards I sprayed the wick and Nick and I got started on potting up the Colocasia esculenta  (Taro).  We potted them up and placed them in the greenhouse then I watered them down while Nick watered the Poinsettia’s.  It was then time to pot up the Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi which are a lovely succulent with a very pretty flower when in bloom.  We had to mix up some new cactus mix with the Promix HP and Turface; then we placed them in some very sophisticated looking reddish orange pots, gave them some water and placed them in the greenhouse so that they could soak up the sun and get themselves acquainted in their new home (just to specify I mean the pot).  I would like to mention that I was writing up labels and placing them in the pots as we went as well so that future classmates knew when they were potted and what type of plant they were looking after.  For the rest of the day we began to work on transplanting the baby succulent cuttings (which look adorable).  Of course we only did the ones that were well rooted and were able to be transplanted, and they too were placed in cactus mix.  At the end of the day we did our closing duty sheet, locked up the greenhouse and called it a day.

March 19, 2016

Another day of greenhouse duty arrived and after we settled ourselves in and called Jeff to let him know we made it there (all four of us), Nick and I started working on getting the greenhouse ready and prepped for the day.  This included doing our opening duty checklist and saving more PRIVA graphs.  Then we checked on the seed pans and seedlings to see if they were doing well and if they needed watering or airing. Once that was completed we decided to get to work on repotting the Echidnopsis dammaniana from the sophisticated reddish orange pots into the 2½” square pots.  Halfway through labeling these interesting looking plants, the label printer ran out of labels and we unfortunately could not find more so we began to write them out ourselves using pencil and some blank scrap labels we found in the drawer.  We also ran out of the 2½” square pots, but luckily we got most of the Echidnopsis dammaniana done before this happened.  Also during the day our fellow classmates Blayne and Jamieson came to say hi as they were doing the chainsaw certification course, and they grabbed some equipment they would need for the lesson, such as a chainsaw and chaps.  I then watered the seedlings and seed pans, while Nick watered the succulents and cacti.  Then as I continued to water everything else, especially the begonias as they sorely needed it, Nick went to work on getting some seeds sown.  Once I was done watering I went in to join him and we worked on completing the rest of the seeds we got from an Austrian seed exchange which is very exciting.  We used the 8” bulb pans and filled out propagation sheets as keeping proper records is very important, then placed them in the greenhouse with the other seed pans and placed a plastic lid over it to help with the germination process.  Once they were complete we watered the seedlings and seed pans, including the new ones, then filled out our closing duty sheets before locking up and heading home.

March 20, 2016

The final day of weekend duty came upon us in a flash, and as usual we began our day doing our handy dandy sheet.  I then gave the seedlings and seed pans a once over and noticed they were drying out so I gave them some water using a haw’s watering can with inverted rose which is the proper way of watering the seeds.  Then I helped Nick take the cuttings out of the propagation chamber so he could clean it out with 10% bleach solution which we had on hand.  While he did that I headed to the tractor bay to see about reorganizing and labeling the trays and flats that were there.  I got to use the handheld label machine which was exciting, though I must confess it took me awhile to figure out how to peel the label off.  Once I was done with that and Nick was done with cleaning the propagation chamber we went into the greenhouse to start grabbing some stock baskets so we could take some cuttings.  As we got ourselves set up, we decided I would go check on the plants in the greenhouse and make sure what needed watering was watered while Nick would begin to start doing the cuttings.  After I finished watering I went back in to help with the cuttings.  This was my first time getting to do cuttings so it was an interesting experience for me, especially using the rooting hormone as I have never used that before.  I managed to get a tray of cuttings done before we began cleaning up the greenhouse.  We cleaned the filters, swept the floor and wiped the tables down.  After completing that and doing our final closing duty sheets we said goodbye to the greenhouse for now and made our way home.

Weekend Blog

By: Nick R, Jeff B

Date: Sun 13/16

                This weekend was a busy one. On Friday we spent most of our day helping out people and selling hydrangeas. We had many people ranging from Fanshawe employees to one very nice lady who came all the way from Dunnville. More notably we had a good friend of one of our professors come in to buy some hydrangeas. Most of our sales occurred between 10am – 2pm. Many people and trying to get the hydrangeas that looked best. By the end of day we had completely sold out of the blue varieties and were down to the pinks, as of today Sunday we are down to only one bench left!

During our small moments of free time Nik was working with Travis in the interiorscape, planting new plants. Most of them were destined for B Café and some for office planters. Nik then had to go and water them in thoroughly to ensure they would survive. Jeff was working hard in the greenhouse on cuttings, after the seedlings had been tended to.  We took cuttings of some Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’, Spanish snapdragons, & variegated pelargonium.

By time the day had finished both Nik and Jeff were exhausted and ready for some R&R. 

On Saturday we buckled down on the Marigolds.

We were tasked with removing the extra seedlings that had sprouted and repotting them in 1204 cell packs. We had to very carefully remove the seedlings without harming the roots, while on the flip side firming in the roots to keep very good root-to-media contact. We did find something interesting when examining the marigolds.

 We looked them over a few times to make sure we had gotten all the extra seedlings (2 per cell) and then we cleaned up checked our list and moved to the next task for the day. That took up most of our Saturday leaving us only half the day remaining. We spent the rest of the day taking cuttings and potting up succulents for the future students attending the upcoming open house. 

The last little bit of the day was spent potting up all the well-rooted cuttings.

As Sunday began with a cold gloomy day we did our best to keep spirits high. The daylight savings time just had thrown us off a little bit but we rose (pun intended) to the challenge. We began the morning with our routine walk of the crop and watering check. Not a whole lot was dry that morning since it was a cold and gloomy. We reorganized the benches to allow all of the seedlings and 1 gallon square pots to be consolidated and then proceeded to the washing the floors and equipment. We gave the trailer and good washing and the RTV’s the same. We swept the floors and dusted the window sills with minutes to spare.

The Sunday morning when we came in we noticed something that caught our attention. Since the daylight savings time started and sent us ahead an hour - when we came in the curtains were still closed. They only began to open after the first hour. So when the curtains were opening and what the computer though was “8am” it was actually 9am in the morning. The curtains I noticed had been opening and closing slightly all night long. Greenhouse temperatures remained very stable through the night and only began to rise as the curtains opened. The temperature outside didn’t drop too much but at the same time didn’t come back up that much.

Our weekend was a hard fought but thorough one. We had to keep the greenhouse going during sales and during all that complete tasks given. Tasks to get the equipment ready for the following weekends as well as ready some of the machinery for use in practical classes.  We covered everything from general fertilization of the stock baskets and marigolds, to transplanting seedlings, we did it all. With teamwork and good critical thinking skills we were able to decipher the list given to us and complete all the assigned tasks. All and all was a good weekend and accomplished a lot. 

Greenhouse Weekend Duty Blog March 4-6, 2016 Rachel F. and Cassandra S.

Spring is in the air and coming up fast, this season is pretty busy for the Fanshawe College greenhouse. We are coming up close to our yearly hydrangea sale, our horticulture program has been growing and taking care of these hydrangeas.  This year we are selling both pink and blue hydrangeas, the blue hydrangeas are coming in wonderfully. The campus greenhouse is also having a sale for some lovely begonias, cacti, and succulents.

With the season of spring comes the season of seeding, just earlier this week our class was shown an amazing seeding machine. Sadly, during weekend duty we didn’t have access to the machine but that didn’t slow us down for the tasks at hand. We started our Friday quickly going over some protocols and extra tasks, once completed we started the usual morning check list/ Priva system and walked the crop. Our next task was to seed some Portulaca grandiflora, we seeded a thousand sundial white and a thousand of the sundial scarlet. Once the Portulaca was finished we rearranged some of the seed trays before misting the seedling and placing plastic domes on the trays to retain the moisture. Our next job ahead was to transplant the Tradescanthia pallida from the mist bed into four inch pots. We also transplanted/ potted up succulents to be used as giveaways at the open house. We finish our day off by washing all our pots and starting on the Pennisetum.

Our second day at the campus greenhouse went very well, after completing the usual morning check list we started back on the Pennisetum. It was a tad tedious with cleaning out all the dead material but we completed the task and potted up to eighty, with a small tray for the ones that need more time. To finish the off the Pennisetum we mixed a table spoon and half of the 10-52-10 water soluble fertilizer given to us by the green house technician and mixed into a watering can before giving them a shower.

Then we set our goal towards cleaning out the propagation chamber from it’s common enemy algae and the dead foliage crowding the cuttings. This task required a lot of elbow grease and patience but was well worth it to see the propagation chamber in better condition. While we were still grubby from the cleaning we started washing the recent delivery of heavy web trays, lots of pine needles and spider nests among those trays. When a good amount was washed we started replacing the trays on the side bench with the heavy web trays that were much more suitable for supporting cacti and succulent pots that are on sale. We ended the day with cleaning more dirty pots and placing loose trays in their right sections.

Our last day of greenhouse weekend duty on campus went by pretty fast. After the usual morning routine, we started with walking the crop while spot watering for any dry patches. Then we got started in washing the rest of the heavy web trays before putting them away. Our next task at hand was one of the most interesting tasks given to us. We were required to find the EC /Ph readings of five random blue hydrangeas and five random pink. We were shown how to use the EC/Ph reader about a moth ago so the whole process was a great reminder and a fun challenge over the usual labour. We got wide mix of different Ph/EC levels in both the pink hydrangeas and the blues. Once the readings were done and recorded we went to organize the Tagetes seedling trays which are germinating nicely.

Overall the greenhouse weekend duty went by well with no problems except an uncooperative camera. We learned plenty from the tasks assigned to us and enjoyed getting a better handle on our seeding and the PH/EC level reader. Having weekend duty during this busy season really taught us students many things, it gives us insight on how much our work can differ with the change of seasons. This weekend duty also taught us how much work and time comes into growing your own annuals/ perennials from seed. From the starting of seeding to when they are ready to go out can take up many months and is something that has to be timed rightly for the best results.

Greenhouse Weekend Blog - February 26-28, 2016

Josh D. and Raeshawn

Spring is on its way and with it the sun. For the spirits of Raeshawn and Josh, the sun added a lift that had been missing since winter began. With Reading Week in full swing, the two students left their cozy homes and families Friday morning to meet up with Jeff Rowley at the Fanshawe Greenhouse. For the first hour Jeff informed the two young bucks of their tasks for the weekend, a list almost too mammoth to comprehend. However a flame grew in the two hero’s hearts for the chance to prove themselves to the masters of the Horticulture Program. First on the list was a job that at first seemed easy … until it turned out to not be. Within the confines of Fanshawe College, across from the Bookstore, three enormous pots stood amongst the windows, the sentinels of the Horticultural program. These three giant Ficus plants were covered in a blanket of dust.

Day 1: The Ficus Plants

The students listened intently to Jeff explain what had to be done. First the planter had to be tipped on its side, which was a four ‘man’ job to do in its self. Next the leaves were to be washed with a wet cloth, usually removing more than 3 mm of caked-on dust and grime. Many times leaves had to be cleaned again because the ever shaking of the tree would puff out more bunnies of dust and sticking them to the wet leaves. An ever vigilant eye was needed to contain the water leaking from the toppled pot, to do this we used the ever noisy shop-vac. After countless hours working behind the bars of the metal barricades, Raeshawn and Josh were beginning to feel much like zoo animals and even put up a sign stating passerby’s to ‘Not Feed The Horticulture Students’. It must be said though that there is nothing like the stares of people watching you as you dust a giant tree on its side with Requiem for a Dream playing in the background. At the end of the day, 2 of the 3 Ficus plants were dusted, friendships were made and a severe hatred for the annoying musical Coke machine was forged. Day 1 complete. 

Day 2: The Eternal Life

The sun peeked around the corner of M building, reaching out with rays of light to the hungry plants within the Greenhouse. At 8:00 am the two students arrived, a plan set to get as much of the list done as possible. Ready for another day the two students sat down and hashed out the tasks, making a list of all the assignments, their rank of importance and the relative amount of time needed to finish them. First on the list was Morning duties which include, but are not limited to, checking the humidity box, record the temperature of the greenhouse, check for sprouts in the seed pans, and of course water those thirsty. While Raeshawn worked on the morning checklist, Josh mounted the challenge of seed planting, beginning with the marigolds that needed to be added to previously planted packs in the greenhouse. With careful hands he removed the seeds from the package and one cell at a time began to plant; all 1120 of them.

With the music and The Private Life of Plants keeping the beat in the background, Raeshawn began cleaning up the seeding bench. This bench was home to 7 flats of geraniums, 2 flats of Pothos and about a dozen seeded flats of various species. With more seed flats on the list to be produced it was necessary to find the non-seeding trays a new home. This however didn't take too long and soon she pranced into her next job; watering the Hydrangeas. She originally decided to spot-water using the watering can but found that so many were in need of water that it only made sense to turn on the drip system for the thirsty leaflings. As the hydrangeas drunk Raeshawn helped Josh with the long job of planting the marigolds.

Let it be said, Saturday was the day to get all the big jobs done; Seeding and Cuttings, watering and moving, and the jobs put first were not supposed to take all that long. Considering that the marigold seeds are larger than the previously used Coleus seeds it was assumed that it would be easier to plant and thus take less time. An hour maybe. Though time was not tracked it can easily be said that it was not fast and it took longer than 1 hour. Insanity broke the silence as eyes looked to 1 cm long yellow seed to speckled cell, seed to cell, seed to cell, seed to cell. It was almost like when a person drives for a long time, staring into the distance, bored by the houses and fellow cars on the road that they start thinking about friends, dinner, that weird lady at the grocery store, when suddenly you refocus and realize that time has passed and you really weren't thinking of the road at all. It was the exact same. All things aside, the marigolds got planted and watered in, the students proud to cross another thing off their list.

Number 3 on the list was adding aluminum sulfate to the blue Hydrangeas. Here is why: Blue and Pink Hydrangeas are the classic colours for the upcoming Easter Holiday. Where Pinks like a slightly alkaline soil pH, Blues like a little more acid soil. AS lowers the pH of the water and thus changes their colour to blue. Magic? Nope, it's Science and science rules! So armed with 2 watering cans, a measuring spoon, a bag of aluminum sulfate and a couple measuring cups, the two set to the task and treating the Blues. Raeshawn mixed 7g of aluminum sulfate into each liter of water, equaling almost 40g per watering can. Josh did the watering and while he did that Raeshawn mixed the next watering can. Working as one, the two students got the blues sulfated and ready for task 4 which was more seeding. Three different types of Coleus, Dusty Miller and Salvias however time ran out to plant the Salvia. After 3 trays the clock struck 4:00 and it was time to clean up and perform the Closing Checklist Duties. Day 2 complete.

Day 3: So it continues

Sunday and the school was dead. Raeshawn left early from home to start up the greenhouse which apparently didn't want to do. After collecting the keys from security and unlocking the front doors the greenhouse alarms wailed like a banshee with a hang nail. With a call to security the alarms where disabled and allowed her to start the morning checklist. While working she went over the to-do list in her head. "Well the Ficus dusting is pretty much a write off," She thought to herself. Two of the fig trees were finished getting their bath but the one still sat gloomily untouched. The amount of time is took to dust just one plant would mean giving up at least 2-3 hours on the many other assignments so it took a backseat until everything else was done. The day consisted of up-potting, the moving of plants from small pots to larger ones, as well as more seeding, treating the few pest-damaged plants in quarantine and measuring the pH/EC of the Hydrangeas. Raeshawn started with watering while Josh set his sights on tackling the pests. Using isopropyl alcohol on cotton swabs he treated small mealybug problems, while using insecticidal soap on the rest to combat aphids and the occasional fungus gnat. These problems were not all the large and compared to the large collection of plants in the greenhouse it was but a drop in the pool. At first glance when entering the greenhouse the occasional flying insect may be seen but 99% of the flying insects seen during the weekend were not pests they were a parasitic wasp called Aphidius which lays its eggs in aphids. It is quite obvious they are doing the trick for most plants are pest free.

Young plants were removed from a large Spider plant with many babies. These babies were then potted into small pots to help grow out there roots before they will be potted up into their individual pot homes. Last item on the list to do was pH/EC reading which involves collected distilled water that has percolated through a plants soil (mainly our Pink or Blue soil) and read by a meter. As mentioned the pH of the soil is imperative to a plants health for it decides what nutrients will be available to it. EC is the Electrical Conductivity which measures the amount of salts in the soil/water and determines how many nutrients you have available in the soil. Since distilled water was used, the baseline for pH would be 7 (Which is neutral) and 0 for the EC reading. Blues were found to have a pH of 5.5 and an EC of 1620 while Pinks were found to have a pH of 6 and an EC of 168. This indicated more available nutrients in the blue soil then in the pinks.

The last chore of the day was clean up, spit-shining the greenhouse into a clean place of work. This was once again followed by the Closing duties and the return of the security keys. End of Day 3.