Greenhouse Weekend Duty Blog

Chris, Justin and Rob

Our weekend started on a Friday morning with Jeff informing us of some important information. We then started our day with many Poinsettia sales and deliveries around the campus. We ended up going to the wrong place so we had to make our way over which took some time but we made it. Everyone seemed very excited when we made the deliveries. Many people liked the different cultivars that we have grown and are very happy with the end product.

Next we were instructed to lower one of the lights to prepare some of our plants that we would like to force into flower for Congress Trade Show, which will be held in early January. As a class we will be building a pollinator garden to show our skills that we have acquired over the past year and a half. We are all very excited for this opportunity. Before lunch we also re-potted some of our succulents for sale, also we re-arranged our poinsettias as they were going out the door fairly quickly ensuring that the table looked full. We also took some cuttings from our stock baskets which will hopefully root and thrive. We then alternated our lunch breaks as someone needed to stay for possible plant sales. After lunch potted up some prickly pears before taking our last break. We then had a few guests who were prospective students; we showed them around our greenhouse and answered any questions they had. This concluded our first day of greenhouse duty.

Our second day of greenhouse duty started on an overcast Saturday morning. We arrived and started our work by opening the blackout curtains and checking over the crop. We then went into the school and looked after some of our interior plants. We arrived back at the greenhouse to open for plant sales at 9 am. We got back to it taking cuttings from many of the stock baskets, although some we felt were not big enough to take from. This took most of the afternoon along with doing many sales. Justin spot watered the grasses, perennials and the cuttings on the first table. We had a small rush of people who came and bought many different plants. After closing down the cash register for the day we all took a trip to the compost area to dispose of some unwanted soil and plant material. After arriving back at the greenhouse we gave a quick cleaning to the work area as well as greenhouse before calling it a day. See you tomorrow!!

Our third and final day of greenhouse is here and for the most part we think everything has gone well and we are happy with our work. Plus everything is still alive so that’s good. We began by walking the crop and checking our sticky traps, we noticed that sadly a casualty had happened at some point and a Parasitic Wasp had been captured which is not what we wanted, the wasp was one of our beneficial insects that we use in the greenhouse. After checking the crop we opened the till and prepared an order of Poinsettias for tomorrow morning. Since we had sold 2 of our Poinsettia arrangements we also started the day by making replacements.

 After this we started removal of the blackout curtains as this crucial time for the Poinsettias was over. Chris jumped on the backpack blower and blew the front of the greenhouse as well as sides removing all debris from parking lots and leaves from grass area. After this we took break. After break we had our first customer of the day, which quote said “I did a U-turn in the street skkkrrrttt” (tires screeching) because she saw our sign we had placed on Fanshawe Boulevard. We are convinced that our little “Poinsettia” sign helped convince this woman to turn around and come into the greenhouse. 

After discussing different things we could keep doing to keep us busy, we decided to make two more poinsettia sale signs, Justin and Chris went down to the compost pile to find some things to make up supports for the signs. We came back with large grass stalks hoping that they would be sufficient enough to hold our signs in place. We used grass to tie together stalks and made a good sign for poinsettia sales! 

We hoped by doing this we could bring in more customers by widening the advertising zone. We then alternated lunch breaks and started the cleaning process for the greenhouse after lunch. We had a few more sales and walked the crop ensuring that everything was okay to be left for the night. After doing this we cashed out and closed down the sale portion of our weekend. We then continued cleaning and took back some more compost and finished our reports. Throughout the weekend we notice that the ‘Ice Punch’ cultivar was a popular choice amongst the customers and they really thought that the ‘Gold Rush’ cultivar was really unique. This concluded our weekend duty and we are all happy with the end result.