Weekend Greenhouse Blog

Julian and Sean

Friday October 7^th

Jeff showed us first thing how the blackout curtains worked right when we got to the greenhouse at 7:50 Am. Then he told us to walk the crop to check for any signs of root rot or lack or water. We did this twice over making sure that we did not miss any plants. Then we walked the crop again to clean off any dying or dead foliage on the benches and in the pots. Then Jeff showed us how to mix up a batch of fertilizer and went over how the dosatron works. He helped us with fertilizer to water ratio and got the fertilizer out of the chemical storage. After watering the crop we watered the mini’s and the crop in the hydroponic flat making sure to only use 1.5l for the mini flats and watching the hydroponic flat till in drained out completely. Sean and I began the Dusty Miller cuttings after that. We had to rip them out of the group first to obtain the plant and then we could start taking cuttings from the Dusty Miller. We placed the finished cuttings into a flat of 48 and placed a cheese cloth over them and placed them in the greenhouse. We then did any stock baskets that didn’t have cuttings in the mist system. Labeled the one cutting put couldn’t with the other one because we were unsure of the plants name. Julian moved plants from outside of oasis to the library, he then moved plants from A building to the library as well. Julian than watered all the interior plants in B building and T building. During this time Sean helped Jen straightened up the Ficus tree in front of the book store we took out some of the old ivy added some potting media and transplanted some mums in the planters. Made sure the blackout curtains were fully closed at the end of our day.

Saturday October 8^th

The First thing we did this morning upon arrival was open the blackout curtains then walk the crop and spot water wilting plants.  We than ripped out the elephant ear in front of m building and at the back of the greenhouse compound. The placed all the Elephant ears in bulb creates and packed them with soil. We also replaced the Elephant ears outside of m building with mums. We cleaned and weeded the compound as well because the Elephant ears left a huge mess of soil and the compounds garden bed was full of weeds. Once we fully cleaned off the compound garden bed and floor we began to label the caster beans red or green. The loop I’D tags were not in the greenhouse though, so we had to use paper labels to label them. Once that was done we fixed the greenhouses blackout curtain links because some were missing, however we ran out of links as there was a lot more missing than original thought. Jeff gave us a bag of links for the blackout curtains but it wasn’t enough we did what we could though. We also changed any broken/ root rotten emitters switched them out with a new line and emitter if the emitter was labeled with root rot. We then placed out emitters in a bucket of bleach and water. Finishing off our day we dusted off the Ficus trees in front of the book store with water and rags they looked disgusting. We finished off our day by making sure the blackout curtains were fully closed

Sunday October 9^th

We covered most of our weekend duties in the past days but still had some small tasks to accomplish. We began the day off as usual pulling open the blackout curtains followed by walking the crop. We took a total inventory of each cultivar of poinsettia we have in the greenhouse recording those numbers down on the appropriate sheet. We then repriced all the mini poinsettias correctly sticking the proper label on the back of the ID card. Also lowering all the poinsettias onto the lower shelves of the benches. We then travelled the college via the RTV looking for Cannas we found most of them in very large planters in front of A & beside T building as well as the registers office. We noticed the RTV was getting low on fuel we then went through the process of fueling them up. We had to get help from security being the process wasn’t thoroughly explained to us. We then signed out the appropriate keys and filled out the paper work. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a thorough clean of the greenhouse, there was a full rack of dirty pots we soaked in bleach and scrubbed clean hung them to dry. Sean cleaned the greenhouse classroom section hosing off the floors including the bathroom. He then wiped down the cuttings table with bleach along with the computer desks and cash register. After this was finished the floor drain grate was thoroughly cleaned of media and plant matter. Julian sprayed down extra media on the benches sprayed down the cracks in the floor sprayed the plant media and plant matter into the nearby drains. Removed and thoroughly cleaned out the drains of plant matter and media then rinsed everything down. Repeated same steps for both sides of the greenhouse then gave everything one final rinse and squeegee. We finished the day off by blacking out the greenhouse.