Greenhouse Weekend Duty Blog March 4-6, 2016 Rachel F. and Cassandra S.

Spring is in the air and coming up fast, this season is pretty busy for the Fanshawe College greenhouse. We are coming up close to our yearly hydrangea sale, our horticulture program has been growing and taking care of these hydrangeas.  This year we are selling both pink and blue hydrangeas, the blue hydrangeas are coming in wonderfully. The campus greenhouse is also having a sale for some lovely begonias, cacti, and succulents.

With the season of spring comes the season of seeding, just earlier this week our class was shown an amazing seeding machine. Sadly, during weekend duty we didn’t have access to the machine but that didn’t slow us down for the tasks at hand. We started our Friday quickly going over some protocols and extra tasks, once completed we started the usual morning check list/ Priva system and walked the crop. Our next task was to seed some Portulaca grandiflora, we seeded a thousand sundial white and a thousand of the sundial scarlet. Once the Portulaca was finished we rearranged some of the seed trays before misting the seedling and placing plastic domes on the trays to retain the moisture. Our next job ahead was to transplant the Tradescanthia pallida from the mist bed into four inch pots. We also transplanted/ potted up succulents to be used as giveaways at the open house. We finish our day off by washing all our pots and starting on the Pennisetum.

Our second day at the campus greenhouse went very well, after completing the usual morning check list we started back on the Pennisetum. It was a tad tedious with cleaning out all the dead material but we completed the task and potted up to eighty, with a small tray for the ones that need more time. To finish the off the Pennisetum we mixed a table spoon and half of the 10-52-10 water soluble fertilizer given to us by the green house technician and mixed into a watering can before giving them a shower.

Then we set our goal towards cleaning out the propagation chamber from it’s common enemy algae and the dead foliage crowding the cuttings. This task required a lot of elbow grease and patience but was well worth it to see the propagation chamber in better condition. While we were still grubby from the cleaning we started washing the recent delivery of heavy web trays, lots of pine needles and spider nests among those trays. When a good amount was washed we started replacing the trays on the side bench with the heavy web trays that were much more suitable for supporting cacti and succulent pots that are on sale. We ended the day with cleaning more dirty pots and placing loose trays in their right sections.

Our last day of greenhouse weekend duty on campus went by pretty fast. After the usual morning routine, we started with walking the crop while spot watering for any dry patches. Then we got started in washing the rest of the heavy web trays before putting them away. Our next task at hand was one of the most interesting tasks given to us. We were required to find the EC /Ph readings of five random blue hydrangeas and five random pink. We were shown how to use the EC/Ph reader about a moth ago so the whole process was a great reminder and a fun challenge over the usual labour. We got wide mix of different Ph/EC levels in both the pink hydrangeas and the blues. Once the readings were done and recorded we went to organize the Tagetes seedling trays which are germinating nicely.

Overall the greenhouse weekend duty went by well with no problems except an uncooperative camera. We learned plenty from the tasks assigned to us and enjoyed getting a better handle on our seeding and the PH/EC level reader. Having weekend duty during this busy season really taught us students many things, it gives us insight on how much our work can differ with the change of seasons. This weekend duty also taught us how much work and time comes into growing your own annuals/ perennials from seed. From the starting of seeding to when they are ready to go out can take up many months and is something that has to be timed rightly for the best results.