Greenhouse weekend blog – Sebastian and Jordan

September 25-27, 2015

               

It was a great experience almost bitter sweet, great for the experience and responsibility of the greenhouse, bitter for the Saturday, it seemed the whole city was a moving canvas of painted faces and every tint of purple clothing for the western homecoming all drinking fermented liquids derived from hops.

We met in the greenhouse to go over the opening checklist with Jeff and were informed that sue would be meeting us after her class at about eleven o’clock. Before we could get started I showed up with shorts and Jeff was quick to ask me if I had pants before he began. I quickly answered “Yes! In my locker” and ran as fast as my hairy legs could carry me. As soon as I had returned we went over the opening check list such as recording the temperature inside the greenhouse, recording the temperature of off the Priva program from the computer of the settings not the actual temperature, seeing if the temp was at optimal level, print a beginning Graph of the Priva readings of greenhouse temperatures inside and outside of the greenhouse, relative humidity, checking the facility for broken windows, leaking pipes, missing tools or equipment, and collect garbage and debris, check the Priva box located inside the greenhouse to ensure wick was moist and the container was full, urn on the propagation chamber lights and misting chamber and record the temperature, check all greenhouse plants two to three times a day as needed more on the hotter days, all greenhouse doors unlocked at the beginning of the day, making sure all the hose are coiled up and heads of the hoses are not laying around, main valves of the drop lines are turned off, placing caution wet signs up and finally sweeping up all floors and area out front of greenhouse curb. We were informed we would be doing a closing graph again and a closing checklist before the end of the day. This process seemed to take a good amount of time but before we knew it we were alone and left to our duties of managing the green house.

As we were getting started we had our first customer to buy chrysanthemum’s Jordan took care of them we sold four chrysanthemum’s on the Friday throughout our day. As we got back to our list of things to be accomplished Jordan was doing a circle check on our pony for the weekend (RTV 500). Our pony passes with flying colours and we had the intention of going out and doing divisions of these perennials. Sue showed up to add to our list of things to do I felt like Cinderella when I saw piles upon piles of pots. We give the poinsettias water and notice the sounds of squirting water and splashing. We look under the benches and about the fifth or sixth bench we notice a break in the line that has been fixed with duct tape. So we inform Jeff and we just dry it off and reapply the duct tape.

                After our lunch break we decide to do the weeding out back of the greenhouse and wash/sort pots and treys we did this till three-thirty and started our closing checklist and cleaning and closing curtains and applying Velcro where needed on the curtains for our blackout.

On our second day Saturday we knew exactly what to do because Jeff is a good teacher. So we go over our opening checklist after this we are super excited to fill up R2D2 (green interiorscape watering can) with fertilized water and do our interiorscape watering for the weekend. We full him up and take him for a spin over to T building which is literally the furthest building from the greenhouse. After successfully watering the interior plants it was time for divisions. As we drive around we grab twelve divisions for four different plants. Then we are back in the greenhouse potting and labeling the plants to be placed within the greenhouse.

After this task I get started on our integrated pest management report and recommendations while Jordan got started on the pots washing and cleaning and sorting them. We did this till near the end of our day saving time for our closing checklist and our blackout curtains and more Velcro where needed.

On our final day after walking through the campus to make it to the greenhouse I notice potting media on the floor close to the bookstore. I went over to the nearest pot to be struck with horror I’m assuming it was one of them drunk kids I saw running around the other day. So that was the first thing on our list was to take care of our fallen soldiers.

 After completing this task we needed to empty out the fertilizer bin to make up more fertilizer at 250 ppm. After doing the math we figured it out to be 1250g/10L. It was a pretty laidback day and we had tons of pots and cleaning to do over the day. We finished our day with our closing checklist and returning to black out.