Jamieson and Cassandra Greenhouse Duty

            It was the best of weekends; it was the worst of weekends. Friday started for us at the greenhouse at eight in the morning. We met with Jeff to learn some of the ropes of maintaining the greenhouse, going over the processes and routines that needed to be carried out daily; Such as watering the chrysanthemums, checking on all the potted plants in the greenhouse itself (especially the poinsettias), checking temperatures at least twice daily, and cleaning the facility plus the  equipment.

Soon we were on our own to take over the greenhouse duty and we couldn’t have been more successful this weekend. Sue swung by after her class on Friday to reiterate our duties and goals, and to answer any further questions we might have had.  We had lots of work to do to maintain as much perfection as we could. The Fanshawe Greenhouse is probably one of the cleanest in all of London thanks to little time and effort. A little spring cleaning absolutely everywhere (better late than never), the floors have been swept in every corner and the plant pots are ready for their next set of plants.

Its official, Chrysanthemums are ready for sale on the 22^nd! We set up the sign with a little help from the maintenance crew and their Kubota. They are flowering beautifully and they are only 10 dollars.       

 There was lots of extra material to bring to the compost so we cleared it out from the racks and now the greenhouse is looking more organized every day. There are four more indoor tropical plants on display in the front of the college in T building that we brought over for everyone to see, the tall one especially proved to a required quite a bit of cooperation to transport safely.

             On our last day, we collected and some grasses to bring into the greenhouse such as the All Gold Japanese Forest Grass and Japanese Blood Grass, potting it and adding to the collection. We also consolidated a lot of the grasses previously potted on Wednesday to give them a fuller more presentable appearance.

The back garden of our greenhouse facility needed some weeding so we dug it up and levelled it out as best as we could. The poinsettias are looking great, their leaves are getting bigger and we are soon going to start our blackout period to turn them a bright Christmas red. But Christmas red is not the only colour you will be seeing in our poinsettias; we have about 10 different cultivars here in the greenhouse. That includes some such as “Christmas Seasons Marble”, “Polar Bear” and “Ice Punch”. We finished cleaning whatever we could and maintained the floors so they continue to look clean.

            We had noticed small numbers of fungus gnats in the greenhouse itself so on the third day we set up a few sticky traps so see if we could develop a better idea of how bad the problem was. The floors have been swept so well that there is no home for any insects on the floor. The sticky traps show that there is not much to worry about for there are only a couple of unlucky fungus gnats on the trap. A greenhouse with few pests means that we are keeping it clean and maintaining a certain amount of moisture in our soil for poinsettias. If we were to over water our poinsettias then we might have pests to worry about. Everything is up to code.

In conclusion we have had a wonderful weekend working at the greenhouse. Everything is tidy, watered, washed and organized. Poinsettias are continuing to grow successfully and chrysanthemums are ready for sale on Tuesday. Compost material is all cleared out and now we have a clear organized space. All the one gallon and white pots are cleaned and sanitized ready for a new plant.  At the end of the day Sunday we left feeling that the greenhouse was in much better condition at the end of our weekend than at the beginning, now we can only hope it stays that way!