Jeff and Travis' Greenhouse Weekend Blog

 

            Friday October 9^th was a cloudy rainy day with cool temperatures.  We started the morning by opening the blackout curtains. After we had let in what little light there was that morning we proceeded to walk the crops. We looked at all the healthy poinsettias noticing the color change occurring on some of the bracks. After we had looked over the poinsettias, noticing they were all watered and clean, we went back to the potting room to discuss our weekend with Jeff and Sue. Shortly afterwards we took down the pots from above the filing cabinets. We spent the rest of the day unloading and cleaning the cacti and succulents that Lucas had delivered from the A.M Cuddy Gardens

 

A few crates of penisetums and canna lilies had also come in with the succulents.

            Saturday morning was a bright sunny morning. The day turned out to be a nice warm day great for the crop. We began the morning with the typical walk of the crops and we looked over the stock baskets and perennials. Then we proceeded to organize all the succulents and cacti we had brought in the day before onto the fixed benches. We organized many into their genus’ to ensure they would be easy to find should we need to. Later, once we had finished reorganizing the cacti and succulents, we potted up many of the other succulent and cacti that were to be made ready in pots for the plant sale. Many very virulent and good looking species were potted up, including some very interesting and unusual succulents. We used a different mix than the usual mix. The new mixed we used was two parts potting mix, and one part turface

 

 

 

The turface is a coarse clay like material that increases drainage and has quite an attractive look to it. A light beige in color, the turface works as a good contrast to the plants and the pots. After we had finished with the turface and succulents and cacti we turned our attention to the canna lilies and penisetums. We cut them all back and placed them into bulb crates wrapped in newspaper

 

During all this potting fun we watered the poinsettia crop which had gotten dry from the warm sunny day we were having.

            Sunday was a bright sunny day just like Saturday. The morning began as usual with the walk of the crop and a look over the stock baskets and perennials. Sunday was a busy day. We began the day by going through and sorting out what jobs needed to be done. After we had figured it out we decided to divide and conquer the tasks. Travis started with cleaning up some new stock baskets that had come in while I started dividing a very interesting succulent that had come in. Its name was Puya habailis. I divided it into many smaller pieces then put 2-3 of the divisions in per pot, added some turface for aesthetics then added them to the benches were they belonged.

     After Travis had finished the baskets and I had finished the Puya, we went through all the stock baskets and put large white labels in some of them to indicate which ones were duplicates of other stock baskets. I went outside afterwards to collect some caster bean seeds from a nearby caster plant. I then placed the seeds in a bulb crate with no soil but lined with some newspaper. Travis began to clean pots and get the greenhouse looking spiffy for the coming week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While he was busy inside I went outside the greenhouse to take out all the pots in the soil bed located just out front of the greenhouse. After pulling all of the pots out I filled the holes in using some of the waste soil we had left from potting up the cacti and succulents from the previous two days. After I had filled the holes I hard raked out the bed and cleaned up all the soil that had fallen out of the bed. After all that had been finished I switched up tasks and began to clean the actual greenhouse, while Travis had started to clean the potting area. The areas were washed and swept spotless and the floor drains emptied. Then the last little bit of our weekend was spent finishing up closing the blackout curtains and completing the checklist, recording temperatures and so on. All and all it was a busy weekend, much was accomplished, and much was learned. The poinsettia crop is expected to be in full color for the November sale.