Maintenance Weekend Duty on Fanshawe Campus Blog 

Rachel F and Nik R.

This weekend started off the first weekend duty on Fanshawe campus of the new school year. I was pretty excited to complete my weekend duty and gain some hand on learning experience. Fortunately my partner was a summer student gardener for the Fanshawe campus grounds, I was shown how everything worked and the responsibility’s given while on weekend duty. I learned the names and uses of many different gardening tools and the proper techniques when it comes to using them while working. Unfortunately we faced unpleasant weather conditions with off and on heavy showers and strong winds. This made our assigned work much harder since we had to deal with muddy turf and unpleasant winds blowing soil in our faces. After being told the run down and the expectations to be met, we headed off on our first assignment of the weekend. My weekend duty partner and I headed over to M building where we tackled the west side garden bed, with the goal of edging the bed and giving it a much needed cleanup. I was shown the proper technique of laying out the new edge with string and stakes plus the proper technique of edging a garden bed. Once the edging was complete we gave the bed a good weeding then pruned back over growth and dead foliage. Since we knew new there would be heavy showers over the weekend we decided to wait until Sunday to cultivate the bed loosening up the compacted soil from heavy rain, giving the bed its finishing touch.

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After the completion of the west side garden bed of M building, we drove over to Fanshawe College Boulevard to dig tree wells on city trees down the south side of Fanshawe College campus. This task was fairly difficult with poor weather conditions and the state of some of the trees. We mapped out our tree wells with string and got started on edging circles with the half moon. The process took a while with many large roots in the way, we carefully worked around the roots making sure not to damage any. We were able to complete all the trees assigned to us except one since the roots were too serious of a problem. So we started down the north side of Fanshawe College Boulevard completing some extra tree wells. We also discover the disease gull on a few trees down the south side of Fanshawe College Boulevard. I was also shown where the compost piles were located on campus while dumping the excess turf and weeds.

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We also completed some extra tasks, such as cleaning out the Kubota and washing it down for the next weekend duty crew. Cleaned and organized the tool room, and helped the weekend duty greenhouse crew put up the greenhouse marketing sign. During our assigned work we were also able to collect a few pests, and sample of disease. Overall it was a pleasant weekend with lots accomplished and time going relatively fast. I was surprised but happy with how much I learned and the experience I gained, can’t wait till Greenhouse weekend duty to gain even more valuable experience.