Blog Post

Greenhouse Practical

Friday, November 21, 2014

Rachael and Chantdell

We started our day with Jeff giving us the run down on how to open the greenhouse in the morning. We then started by walking the crop and watering plants that needed to be watered. We found three plants almost completely wilted so we placed them on a different bench for close monitoring. We packaged up 29 poinsettias (foiled, paper) for delivers into the school and delivered them to various locations. Today we sold $108 worth of poinsettias .Upon walking the crop we cleared all the dead foliage, made sure everyone had an emitter and gave the crop a 15 minute bath with the Dosatron. The seedlings in the fridge and tractor bay didn’t require water. Then we made sure all the cactuses were watered and assisted Mike with the interior. The blackout curtains needed to be removed off the doors and we placed four sticky cards to monitor the bugs. We packaged 7 poinsettias for Michael’s meeting. The end of the day neared we cleaned up all the pots. There was a problem with the misting system so we had to shut off water valve as it was flooding and ended having to manually running the misting system for an hour each day. We started to take pictures and continued to monitor the pests and roots in the greenhouse. Today was a very productive day. We completed our opening and closing check lists and calculated the poinsettia profit.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

This morning we walked the crop and removed all the dead foliage off the crop. We re-located the poinsettias from the back of the benches to the front for sale. Upon doing the walk around the greenhouse we had noted someone had used the greenhouse as a bathroom. Then we re-located the Perellia from the cactus location to the back of the benches to be placed on a drip for congress. We had to spray the variegated cultivars and polar bear plants with Safer insecticide soap to aide in the white-fly population and placed potatoes in some of the crop to see about catching some fungus gnats. We ended up an hour later spraying these cultivars with water to dilute the solution. Our program shirts were covered in white flies when we were done. It took about 4 bottles of the soap to complete so we also had to mix that up with safety glasses and gloves. Then mixed up 10 liters of fertilizer for the Dosatron and gave the plants a 15 minute drink. Earlier in the morning we had to remove the dead foliage off theColocasia to promote growth for spring. We had completed our tasks for today early so we gave the greenhouse a very thorough scrub and organized the materials for plant sales to make it look clean and organized. We even scrubbed all the tables, bins, misting lights, the floor mats and places that hadn’t seen a good cleaning in a while. The three poinsettias that were under watch we placed double emitters in and are making a fast recovery. We also calculated the PH readings for the Poinsettias. The weather today wasn’t so nice but we did enjoy the sound on the greenhouse roof. We completed our opening

and closing checklist and sold one more poinsettia. We completed the ph. readings however we are unsure if this devise was working correctly. We had another very productive day.

Sunday November 23/2014

What a beautiful morning. The snow is gone. We began the day doing the walking around the greenhouse as suspected we found a bunch of beer cans and bottles. Some of the bottles were smashed against the greenhouse. Upon completing the morning check list the prima box was really dry so we wet the wick. We completed the 100 Grass stems required for congress. After completing the grass we walked the crop and removed all dead foliage. We then completed the order of poinsettias for Monday’s delivery and left them in the greenhouse so that they wouldn’t be under too much stress. The wilted plants we discovered are back to full health and are ready for sale. The insect count collected for the pest management was pretty high. However, after the safer soap spray the whitefly count has come down a lot. Michael paid us a visit and we ended up selling one large pot and 3 plants today so we had to make up more arrangements. Unfortunately due to root rot we had to throw out one plant. As the near ends the greenhouse got a good thorough clean and compost put out to the heap.