Weekend Blog

November 18-20, 2017

            On this weekend duty Ben Adams and myself Justin Treleaven to take care of the greenhouse. On Friday morning we were given our introduction by Jeff and he just explained to us how the greenhouse works and what we are to do in the morning and at night when we are closing. After we were given our jobs for the morning we got right to work.

            The first thing we did was open the shade curtains as a team. Next we began the opening process of the cash register. This being our first time doing it we ran into some problems like the register not opening. Since Jeff was here with us he had a key to open it so we used that not knowing we would run into the same problem the next two days. After we got everything sorted out with the cash it was smooth sailing till the end of the day. Next I began to transplant the cuttings in the mist system while Ben went to go water the interior plants in front of the bookstore. Since it was too busy to water the plants in the library Jenn just showed Ben where they are and how to treat the one plant. The rest of the day we were busy with sales, finishing the transplanting and helping customers.

When it was 4 o’clock we closed our sales and brought the signs inside. While closing cash we ran into the problem with the debit machine just printing a blank receipt. Jeff told me to run down to the bookstore and see if they knew what was going on but they said it was the battery and the battery was fully charged. Jeff just ended up saying to close down anyways.

Saturday- Today was open house day so before anybody showed up we began the opening process, opening the shade curtains, walking the crop and opening cash for sales. Once everyone started to show up we potted up a few Poinsettias in pots together and decorated them with dog wood and pine cones. For a good part of the day we gave some tours and talked to the open house students about our program.

 When the open house was done I decided to make up some more poinsettia fertilizer. 3 o’clock came around and Sue decided that we should close down the cash since not a lot of people came and bought anything for a good period of time. Sue was there with us while we were closing so everything went smooth and as planned. After closing cash we cleaned the floors and wiped down the table to make sure everything was clean for the rest of the day. By the time we were done cleaning the floors and everything else it was time to close the shade curtains for the night. By the time they were closed it was time for us to leave, lock up and bring the key back to security control.

Sunday- I went to security control to get the keys to unlock the greenhouse. I arrived early so I waited till it was time to sign in. I opened the shade curtains and got the cash ready for our sales. We put up our IPM tags and waited 4 hours to take them down. I counted 47 on one card and 32 on the other card all white flies and 1 fungus gnat. We got the microscope out and looked at them it was pretty interesting to see how many there were.

 After we put the microscope away we headed to the tool room to get the tools we needed to get the Caster Bean. Once we got over there we noticed that the ground was solid and our shovels weren’t doing the trick. So we decided to cut it down at the base as close as we could to the soil. Once we cut it down we had enough to make a run over to the compost and dump what we needed to. After all that is was time to close up cash and be done for the day. We closed the shade curtain and washed and cleaned everything that needed to be done. We locked up the greenhouse and brought the keys to security control and we were done for the weekend.