Greenhouse Weekend Blog - February 26-28, 2016

Josh D. and Raeshawn

Spring is on its way and with it the sun. For the spirits of Raeshawn and Josh, the sun added a lift that had been missing since winter began. With Reading Week in full swing, the two students left their cozy homes and families Friday morning to meet up with Jeff Rowley at the Fanshawe Greenhouse. For the first hour Jeff informed the two young bucks of their tasks for the weekend, a list almost too mammoth to comprehend. However a flame grew in the two hero’s hearts for the chance to prove themselves to the masters of the Horticulture Program. First on the list was a job that at first seemed easy … until it turned out to not be. Within the confines of Fanshawe College, across from the Bookstore, three enormous pots stood amongst the windows, the sentinels of the Horticultural program. These three giant Ficus plants were covered in a blanket of dust.

Day 1: The Ficus Plants

The students listened intently to Jeff explain what had to be done. First the planter had to be tipped on its side, which was a four ‘man’ job to do in its self. Next the leaves were to be washed with a wet cloth, usually removing more than 3 mm of caked-on dust and grime. Many times leaves had to be cleaned again because the ever shaking of the tree would puff out more bunnies of dust and sticking them to the wet leaves. An ever vigilant eye was needed to contain the water leaking from the toppled pot, to do this we used the ever noisy shop-vac. After countless hours working behind the bars of the metal barricades, Raeshawn and Josh were beginning to feel much like zoo animals and even put up a sign stating passerby’s to ‘Not Feed The Horticulture Students’. It must be said though that there is nothing like the stares of people watching you as you dust a giant tree on its side with Requiem for a Dream playing in the background. At the end of the day, 2 of the 3 Ficus plants were dusted, friendships were made and a severe hatred for the annoying musical Coke machine was forged. Day 1 complete. 

Day 2: The Eternal Life

The sun peeked around the corner of M building, reaching out with rays of light to the hungry plants within the Greenhouse. At 8:00 am the two students arrived, a plan set to get as much of the list done as possible. Ready for another day the two students sat down and hashed out the tasks, making a list of all the assignments, their rank of importance and the relative amount of time needed to finish them. First on the list was Morning duties which include, but are not limited to, checking the humidity box, record the temperature of the greenhouse, check for sprouts in the seed pans, and of course water those thirsty. While Raeshawn worked on the morning checklist, Josh mounted the challenge of seed planting, beginning with the marigolds that needed to be added to previously planted packs in the greenhouse. With careful hands he removed the seeds from the package and one cell at a time began to plant; all 1120 of them.

With the music and The Private Life of Plants keeping the beat in the background, Raeshawn began cleaning up the seeding bench. This bench was home to 7 flats of geraniums, 2 flats of Pothos and about a dozen seeded flats of various species. With more seed flats on the list to be produced it was necessary to find the non-seeding trays a new home. This however didn't take too long and soon she pranced into her next job; watering the Hydrangeas. She originally decided to spot-water using the watering can but found that so many were in need of water that it only made sense to turn on the drip system for the thirsty leaflings. As the hydrangeas drunk Raeshawn helped Josh with the long job of planting the marigolds.

Let it be said, Saturday was the day to get all the big jobs done; Seeding and Cuttings, watering and moving, and the jobs put first were not supposed to take all that long. Considering that the marigold seeds are larger than the previously used Coleus seeds it was assumed that it would be easier to plant and thus take less time. An hour maybe. Though time was not tracked it can easily be said that it was not fast and it took longer than 1 hour. Insanity broke the silence as eyes looked to 1 cm long yellow seed to speckled cell, seed to cell, seed to cell, seed to cell. It was almost like when a person drives for a long time, staring into the distance, bored by the houses and fellow cars on the road that they start thinking about friends, dinner, that weird lady at the grocery store, when suddenly you refocus and realize that time has passed and you really weren't thinking of the road at all. It was the exact same. All things aside, the marigolds got planted and watered in, the students proud to cross another thing off their list.

Number 3 on the list was adding aluminum sulfate to the blue Hydrangeas. Here is why: Blue and Pink Hydrangeas are the classic colours for the upcoming Easter Holiday. Where Pinks like a slightly alkaline soil pH, Blues like a little more acid soil. AS lowers the pH of the water and thus changes their colour to blue. Magic? Nope, it's Science and science rules! So armed with 2 watering cans, a measuring spoon, a bag of aluminum sulfate and a couple measuring cups, the two set to the task and treating the Blues. Raeshawn mixed 7g of aluminum sulfate into each liter of water, equaling almost 40g per watering can. Josh did the watering and while he did that Raeshawn mixed the next watering can. Working as one, the two students got the blues sulfated and ready for task 4 which was more seeding. Three different types of Coleus, Dusty Miller and Salvias however time ran out to plant the Salvia. After 3 trays the clock struck 4:00 and it was time to clean up and perform the Closing Checklist Duties. Day 2 complete.

Day 3: So it continues

Sunday and the school was dead. Raeshawn left early from home to start up the greenhouse which apparently didn't want to do. After collecting the keys from security and unlocking the front doors the greenhouse alarms wailed like a banshee with a hang nail. With a call to security the alarms where disabled and allowed her to start the morning checklist. While working she went over the to-do list in her head. "Well the Ficus dusting is pretty much a write off," She thought to herself. Two of the fig trees were finished getting their bath but the one still sat gloomily untouched. The amount of time is took to dust just one plant would mean giving up at least 2-3 hours on the many other assignments so it took a backseat until everything else was done. The day consisted of up-potting, the moving of plants from small pots to larger ones, as well as more seeding, treating the few pest-damaged plants in quarantine and measuring the pH/EC of the Hydrangeas. Raeshawn started with watering while Josh set his sights on tackling the pests. Using isopropyl alcohol on cotton swabs he treated small mealybug problems, while using insecticidal soap on the rest to combat aphids and the occasional fungus gnat. These problems were not all the large and compared to the large collection of plants in the greenhouse it was but a drop in the pool. At first glance when entering the greenhouse the occasional flying insect may be seen but 99% of the flying insects seen during the weekend were not pests they were a parasitic wasp called Aphidius which lays its eggs in aphids. It is quite obvious they are doing the trick for most plants are pest free.

Young plants were removed from a large Spider plant with many babies. These babies were then potted into small pots to help grow out there roots before they will be potted up into their individual pot homes. Last item on the list to do was pH/EC reading which involves collected distilled water that has percolated through a plants soil (mainly our Pink or Blue soil) and read by a meter. As mentioned the pH of the soil is imperative to a plants health for it decides what nutrients will be available to it. EC is the Electrical Conductivity which measures the amount of salts in the soil/water and determines how many nutrients you have available in the soil. Since distilled water was used, the baseline for pH would be 7 (Which is neutral) and 0 for the EC reading. Blues were found to have a pH of 5.5 and an EC of 1620 while Pinks were found to have a pH of 6 and an EC of 168. This indicated more available nutrients in the blue soil then in the pinks.

The last chore of the day was clean up, spit-shining the greenhouse into a clean place of work. This was once again followed by the Closing duties and the return of the security keys. End of Day 3.