Greenhouse Weekend Duty Blog

November 30 - December 2, 2018

Rob and Adam

Friday:

It was a cool cloudy morning, as we pulled up to the Fanshawe Greenhouse, we felt very nervous for our first day, as we wanted more than anything in the world to leave the greenhouse better than when we arrived, and to impress Sue with our talented efforts. When we arrived, Jeff Rowley greeted us and gave us the low down on what we had to do and the protocols to follow for the weekend. We had a list for the weekend, and many other task we wanted to get done. After Jeff walked us through our stuff Rob did the open checklist, and I reconfigured the poinsettias and cleaned up most of the leaves.

Throughout the day we had a slow but steady stream of customers requesting a variety of things from Christmas planters to succulents. After we reconfigured the poinsettias, we hung up the Asparagus Ferns in the pots along the roof above the main aisle way in the greenhouse. I then did a hard pinch on the first bench, took cutting off of the succulents, and really cleaned off the benches. I cleaned out the dead plants from bench one and transplanted 6 plants out of the propagation house to 4 inch pots. Afterwards we cleaned up, and Jeff showed us how to shut down the cash register, and how to properly count up the money. At the end of our first day of the weekend duty we had accomplished a lot, and felt quite accomplished with what we had got done. We had sold around $500 dollars in poinsettias, and had got done many of the task Sue had given us prior to our weekend duty.

Saturday:

It was yet another cool cloudy morning as we began the second day of our weekend duty. Rob performed the opening checklist while I opened the blackout curtains and continued to reconfigure poinsettias. I decided to thoroughly reconfigure the poinsettias which ended up clearing off two benches entirely. We than took all the emitters off of one of the benches and thoroughly cleaned them through.

Today we still had a flow of customers, but much less than on the Friday. After the emitters got cleaned I made up two Christmas baskets as a request from yesterday.

In the afternoon we helped out some customers, hand watered everything in the greenhouse, put the emitters back, than packed up, and cleaned up the greenhouse. I closed the cash register which became quite the process, while Rob closed the blackout curtains. We earned roughly $250 in sales today, and completed a number of tasks that needed doing. We than headed home after another successful day at the greenhouse.

Sunday:

Finally a sunny morning, smiled upon us as me and Rob happily pulled up to the greenhouse for our final day of weekend duty. Another work day never felt so good, as the sun shined down on our beautiful faces. We rolled into the greenhouse amped up as we did our opening routine. I performed the opening check list whilst Rob flew through the Greenhouse opening up the shade curtains, and cash register. Once we opened up the greenhouse we took a look at our list and felt that we didn’t have much left to do, so we decided to go above and beyond the call of duty and do more than what was on our list so we can make the greenhouse the best it has ever been. I walked around the greenhouse, and not only picked up the bottles and garbage around but also weeded the front, and the nursery area in the back. Rob and I than thoroughly cleaned out the greenhouse from top to bottom. We wiped down everything in the main room, cleaned the greenhouse floor until it was spotless, washed down the RTV, and even washed down the floor in the RTV room. With all this cleaning being performed, we began to panic as we felt our efforts were becoming meaningless. Rob decided he’d create the culture chart, and take pH/E.C readings for every cultivar. I also cleaned out another table of emitters.

During the afternoon we re-configured the poinsettias, cleaned off every bench, further inspected the crop for pests, and then did our typical closing procedures.

 When 5 o'clock struck we looked at each other with dread in our eyes, the fact that we weren’t coming on Monday for another full work day broke our hearts. My hope is that when everyone else comes back to the Greenhouse, they well be thoroughly impressed by the work we accomplished, and the improved atmosphere will be a better place for everyone to work in continuing forward.

Weekend greenhouse blog - Carlee and Harrison

November 23-25, 2018

With the week beginning with chilly snowy weather, we arrived at the greenhouse on Friday morning with a warmer breeze in the air. We arrived at 7:50 and began getting organized to accomplish the specific set of tasks we had been assigned. Jeff gave us an outline of what was expected of us for the weekend and answered the questions that we had for him. He also informed us that there was probably going to be lots of sales because he had been noticing larger and larger numbers of customers throughout the week. He also gave us a list of poinsettia deliveries that needed to be done.  We then jumped into starting our opening checklist. I began opening the blackout curtains while Carlee walked the crop, inspected for any problems in the greenhouse and determined if the crop needed watering by feeling the soil. We then checked the culture chart to see if the poinsettias had been watered with fertilizer. We determined that it did need to be watered with fertilizer so Carlee began mixing 5L of all-purpose 20-20-20 fertilizer at 250 ppm. We activated the dosatron and as I checked the drip lines to ensure all the poinsettias were getting watered, Carlee began creating custom planters. After I was done examining the drip lines and repairing the broken lines I found, I began to prepare for sales. I placed the two signs out, grabbed the cart with the wreaths and checked to ensure we had a one-hundred dollar float. A couple minutes after we started getting a large number of customers coming into the greenhouse, we then spent a good majority of our time helping customers and wrapping poinsettias while also simultaneously trying to work away at our tasks. In the afternoon on Friday I began delivering roughly 21 poinsettias to two separate offices on campus while Carlee kept making sales and working on custom planters for customers.

As the day began to draw to a close we started to clean up, finished up the closing checklist and cashed out our sales.

                We arrived at the greenhouse on Saturday with a dark gloom of showers outside. We started by walking the crop and opening the blackout curtains. We then did the E.C and pH readings which can be found in our poinsettia culture chart. Then I began moving the valentine from the last bench to a more centered spot in the greenhouse. 

Then I moved 23 Christmas Wish Red and 22 Marbella which are for delivery in December to the last bench. 

While Harrison rearranged the poinsettias inside the greenhouse, I set to work trying to assemble the large wreath for Cuddy’s, this turned out to be much more difficult than I had anticipated and will more than likely need some 3rd party adjustments. It also took up a majority of the day. While I plucked away at the wreath Harrison was busy making some ornaments to be used on the smaller wreaths, and turning cuttings from 4” pots in to stock baskets.
After lunch we did our interiorscape and planted some poinsettias into the planters out front of the bookstore to help advertise them in the greenhouse. We wanted to use some of our more unique cultivars like ‘Red Glitter’ and ‘Marbella’ but with the combination of sales and orders the unique cultivars are dwindling quickly. The rest of the day was spent battling the large wreath, making some stock baskets and tidying up.

                Sunday came and went with a moderate pace. We came in and opened more quickly than before having gotten used to the routine over the previous couple days. While Harrison spot watered anything that looked overly dry,  I spent the morning reorganizing some of the sale succulents and poinsettia standards and minis on the unmoving, perimeter bench. As previously mentioned, the ‘Red Glitter’ and ‘Marbella’ Poinsettias are lowering in numbers but we do still have quite a few of the interesting ‘Valentine’ Poinsettias, which look like a mix between a poinsettia and a rose bush. 

During Harrison’s reorganization over the weekend we were able to bring some of the ‘Valentine’ poinsettias closer to the front of the greenhouse in hopes that these special guys will get some more attention. Harrison and I took some time in the afternoon to move some of the cuttings from our germination station and put them into 4” pots to be used later for our stock baskets. After lunch we both made an attempt at putting together some wreaths which we will have available for sale in the greenhouse along with the others that are already complete.

                Overall it was a good weekend in the greenhouse and one of the last greenhouse weekend duties for our class this semester. We are beyond excited and proud to see our poinsettia crop selling as well as they have been so far and hope they continue to do so. Our class has put a lot of time, effort and most importantly love into these plants, and we are so excited to share them with you.

Fanshawe College Greenhouse Weekend Duty

November 16-18, 2018

Lisa N.

It was a cold and snowy morning as one of the last Greenhouse Weekend Duty shifts got underway at Fanshawe College this passed weekend. I began my workday at 8AM, as Jeff and I sat down to discuss the protocols and procedures for the next few days. Additionally, we discussed the tasks that he wished to have completed and I added them to my pre-existing tasks that Sue had assigned me earlier in the week. After asking questions for clarification, I prioritized my tasks for the rest of the day and weekend as Saturday was the Fanshawe College Open House.

We anticipated many visitors throughout much of Saturday thus it was imperative that large tasks involving the Poinsettia crop be completed on the Friday. My first task was to use the Opening Checklist so that I could be as thorough as possible when tending to the crops. I assessed the crop to see if it needed to be watered and checked the Poinsettia culture chart as well. The crop had been watered two days prior but needed a watering and fertilization. After getting a quick refresher on the calculation for mixing fertilizer, I made up 5 gallons worth of 20-20-20 fertilizer and watered the crop. I was then briefed on the POS system, so that I could be prepared for Poinsettia sales the following day.

                     

      

                                

In preparation for the Open House, I began working on removing all dead/chlorotic foliage that was on the Poinsettias, making them look very presentable. Dead foliage was also removed from the benches at this time. All labels on each plant in the greenhouse were organized facing forward and straightened. Any plant that appeared to not be doing well was composted as well.

Once lunch was complete and I had propagated some succulents, I really wanted to focus on cleaning up the greenhouse. The potting room was thoroughly cleaned which included a dusting of the propagation chamber, wiping down of all surfaces, the floor was swept and pots were washed and put away.

By the end of the day we had yet to have any Poinsettia sales however, I was lucky enough to have two customers come in. I was able to inform the customers of the different cultivars that we had to offer and discuss our program briefly. Once the customers left, I began my closing checklist making sure that everything was perfect for the following day.

Moving into Saturday, I knew it was going to be busy and I was fortunate to have Emily and Nate come in at 8AM with me to accomplish some more cleaning tasks. We cleaned up the tractor bay, making it spotless. While Emily stayed in the greenhouse, Nate and I transported a generator to the front of the school for the Open House and moved the tractor in front of the greenhouse to highlight some of the equipment that we get to use in the program. Once all the volunteers were settled into the greenhouse, we began making custom Christmas planters and wreaths. We were able to highlight some of our skills as prospective students came in to visit the greenhouse and chat about our program. It was a great experience to get to meet future students and talk about why we are passionate about our program.

Once the Open House was done for the day and the crowds died down, Emily and I went inside to perform interiorscape in front of the bookstore and inside the library. This was my first time doing interiorscape. Some of the plants are quite large and so it was difficult to get them fully dusted and have their dead foliage removed. When I returned from interiorscape, Nate kindly showed me how to perform pH and EC readings on the poinsettia crop, another first for me! This task brought us into the last hour of the day where Emily and I began the closing checklist and closed the POS system together.

Sunday morning came early but I was again lucky to have Michael join me for the first half of the day. We began with the Opening Checklist and assessed the crop. We determined that the crop needed to be watered and fertilized. We mixed more fertilizer and began watering. During this time, we walked the crop again to see if any plants were not being adequately watered. We found a couple, watered them and also moved them to the front of the bench so that students could be aware that these plants maybe needed some extra care.

Later in the morning we went through the cuttings in the propagation chamber to see if any could be transplanted. However, we made the judgement call to leave them as many had not fully rooted out just yet. After this task, Michael and I parted ways and performed our own tasks. He worked on cutting off the new growth of the Canna generalis under the benches while I worked on creating a care guide for succulents to be given to customers. Once Michael left for the day, I created a custom Poinsettia planter that we are hoping to sell to the public for the upcoming holiday season. For the rest of the day, I focused again on cleaning to make sure the greenhouse was spotless for Monday morning.

Christmas is Coming!

Weekend Duty Blog for November 9th - 11th, 2018

Nate and Claire

There were signs everywhere on duty in the Greenhouse this weekend that Christmas is on it’s way! On Friday morning we were greeted with the first snowfall of the season and the snow continued through most of the day. Our morning walk of the crop found all the poinsettias to be colouring-up beautifully, so we made sure to have all our poinsettia wrapping materials on standby in case a customer wanted to buy one ahead of our official poinsettia sale. In the meantime, we watered the whole poinsettia crop and an hour later took pH and EC readings of a selection from each cultivar. We found one ‘Christmas Wish Red’ plant to look a little dry and wilted, so we took extra readings for it to compare with a perkier one of the same cultivar and found that the wilted plant had a much lower EC value. To correct this, we spot-watered the plant to ensure it got its proper dose of fertilizer and returned it to its bench. In the afternoon, we were tasked with helping to re-pot a gigantic False Agave that had been donated to the program from Parkway Gardens. While it was too bad that the plant’s original planter had to be sacrificed in the process, the Agave seemed much happier to have more room to grow. Our final big task for the day was to propagate a huge selection of succulents harvested from the collection at Cuddy Gardens. We broke the plants apart into leaves and tops and set them in pans to callous, which will prevent bacteria and disease from entering the plant once its planted. We closed our afternoon with our first poinsettia sale, and promises of many more to come.

On Saturday we switched from propagating to germinating, and sowed a collection of seeds from Jardin botanique Alpin in Switzerland. Some of these require many weeks to begin growing, so hopefully we will start to see growth after the Christmas holidays. After completing the interior plant care route, we dove into holiday prep by harvesting pine cones and fronds of Euonymus, white pine, yews and cedar for our upcoming wreath making event. With a few ribbons around the fronds’ containers and some imitation snow to frost the windows, the greenhouse is beginning to look really festive! Sunday was Remembrance Day, so we observed our moment of silence in the morning before bedazzling some of our collected pine and spruce cones with spray glitter. While those dried, we got started planting our succulent pieces. It took us most of the day, but by the end we had nearly filled all the available space left in the greenhouse with new baby plants! With the poinsettia sale approaching, the baby plants will only have to crowd in a little bit longer - another sign that Christmas is coming!

Greenhouse Weekend Duty Blog

By: Baylee and Mitchell

On Friday, we started with our opening checklist and opening the blackout curtains. Everything seemed in order with the checklist so then we met with Jeff for further instructions and he gave us a list of tasks to complete over the weekend. Once we had finished talking to Jeff we collected Cardoon seeds out of their pods, jarred them, labeled them and put them in the fridge. We went for lunch then walked the crop, found nothing of concern. We opened up the point of sale system during hours of business on Friday. We then pruned and potted the Geraniums and Easy Wave Petunia in sq. 1L pots as well as taking cutting from the Easy Wave Petunia using sanitized secateurs and potted the Easy Wave Petunias.

 We then went on to re-potting the succulent arrangements. After re-potting, we closed the point of sale system before we started to clean up for the day. We circled checked the RTV and did a dump run of compost, pruned and potted Canna’s into crates and then did our closing checklist and closing of the curtains. We couldn’t return the key due to the key being signed out by an unknown person so Jeff locked it for us.

Saturday morning, we got the key from security, unlocked the greenhouse and did our opening checklist and opening of the curtains. We started with propagating succulents and that took up most of our day. We noticed some Mealy bugs of the Coleus that we were going to propagate so we separated them from the rest of the greenhouse and inspected nearby poinsettias for any mealy bugs, we did not find any.

         

We took the watering tank and watered plants in front of bookstore and in the library. We made labels for all cuttings we did, as well as the non labelled flats of lavender scallops. We repotted some existing succulents due to the media being too low. We also repotted the Royal Poinciana due to it having a heavy lean to one side. We cut out dead straw from grasses with sanitized secateurs. After we had most of what we wanted done for the day we started cleaning up and doing the closing checklist as well as closing the curtains. Once we had finished cleaning up, we locked up the greenhouse and we returned the key to security.

For the last day, Sunday, we started with fixing the propagation chamber; its hose for the sprinklers was detached, causing water to not go through the misters. We ran the misters for a few minutes to restore proper moisture and humidity. We then started with the opening checklist and opening the blackout curtains and walking the crop and then finished labeling anything unlabeled. We determined that the crop needed a watering, so after consulting the culture chart we decided to do a flush of all plants including mini’s and standards, we then water any other baskets that may have need it.

After the watering we cleaned up the greenhouse staging area and waited roughly an hour before taking pH and EC reading from all cultivars of poinsettias in the greenhouse. We also cut the dead foliage off of the Colocasia with sanitized secateurs.

  

After cutting dead foliage we cleaned up leaves and put into compost. We organized all pots in the tractor bay, we then took everything out of the tractor bay, swept and washed the floors. We washed all of the equipment and put it all back in the tractor bay. We clean greenhouse floor, cleaned up and washed all tools, pots, trays, and then washed the floor in the greenhouse staging area. We then did our closing checklist and closed the blackout curtains and then returned the key to security.

Weekend at the Greenhouse

Greenhouse Blog - October 26-28, 2018

Andy N.  and Michael E.

On this wet and cold final weekend of October, the keys to the Fanshawe greenhouse were placed into the hands of Michael Easton (me) and Andy Nguyen. We have both worked school placements in local commercial greenhouses; however, having the independent responsibility of running the Fanshawe greenhouse facility was an experience entirely new to us. It was definitely an intimidating task, but Andy and I were excited and prepared to take on the challenges that came with this assignment.

                                   

Birdseye view of Snowcap Poinsettia

Valentine Poinsettia

Friday - 10/26/18

Our journey began on a cold October morning, making our arrival at the warm and cozy greenhouse all the better. After getting settled in and our brief meeting with the greenhouse technician; Jeff, we got to work.

We began by completing the morning greenhouse opening circle check which includes walking the crop, opening the blackout curtains, taking down greenhouse temperature and other administrative tasks. This was a first time for both of us as we are both students placed in the afternoon class (which only completes the closing checklist). However as one might guess, the opening checklist is very similar to the closing checklist, so we were fairly familiar with all the procedures.

Having completed the opening checklist, we found ourselves in front of our first big task; fertilize the crop! The current crop in the greenhouse is of course Euphorbia pulcherrima (poinsettia). Now neither of us had prepared the fertilizer mix before so we had Jeff walk us through it. To complete the fertilization of the crop we needed 2 batches of 20-20-20 mix, one with 250ppm and the other 350ppm. Fortunately there was 250ppm mix was already prepared. How ever there was no 350ppm 20-20-20 mix so it was on us to prepare some. Once the fertilizer was ready we fired up the dosatron and began the fertilization.  All poinsettias with the exception of the Ice punch and Snowcap require 250ppm fertilizer.

After completing the fertilization we felt a lot more comfortable and confident in our abilities, we rode that momentum the rest of the day! The rest of Friday consisted of transplanting (transferring a cutting with a developed root system into pots), setting sticky traps to monitor pests, and of course sales. In total we sold 5 succulents, this was a good day of business. We saw a lot of foot traffic come through our doors. We met some fun and kind people, one of which was a former horticulture technician student here at Fanshawe!

As the day came to an end we completed the closing checklist, locked the doors and returned the keys to security. Overall, Friday was a great learning experience for the both of us.

Saturday 10/27/18

We arrived on Saturday morning much differently than the previous morning. The lessons and experiences from just one day had given us a new spark in our steps. I realized personally that my confidence and overall understanding of the facility had improved tremendously. This was a great feeling that made us excited to take on the new day.

Saturday went very similarly to Friday. We completed our checklists and spent more time transplanting cuttings. Although not everything was the same, with a new day came another new experience; using the aqua mate for interior plant management. This was a nice change of pace as we were able to enter the school and water the plants located in the library as well as in front of the bookstore.

After having had our fun adventure to the library and bookstore it was back to the greenhouse for us. It was then that we completed the last of our transplanting. In total we transplanted over 200 cuttings.

                                              

Views of the completed transplanted cuttings.  

  

Before closing down the greenhouse for the day we did a little bit of pine cone collecting around the campus gardens. The purpose behind this was to supply the greenhouse with enough pine cones for the Christmas themed planters that will be on sale in the greenhouse within the upcoming months!

Sunday Oct 28/18

           

The final day of our greenhouse placement went as smoothly as one could ask for. By this point we had been fully adjusted to and immersed in the day to day operations of a greenhouse.

During our crop walk we discovered that some of the recently transplanted plants had very dry soil and were in need of some spot watering. After completing that job and the rest of the opening checklist it was time to perform a PH and EC readings test. This is done in order to determine the acidic levels (PH) and potential for productivity (EC) of the plant’s soil. This was a time consuming task as one poinsettia from each cultivar needs its own testing. To test the soil, the plant is placed in its pot on top of a measuring cup. Next distilled water is poured onto the poinsettia. The excess water that has ran through the soil is then tested with a probe to find a reading.

The EC and PH tests were the final major task assigned to us concerning the poinsettia crop. Although we were done with poinsettia work we still weren’t completely out of the woods yet. We still needed to complete some inventory updates on our collection of pots in the storage area. We took the remainder of our afternoon to do so. We then completed our final closing check of the weekend.

                                               

Andy Inspecting and collecting data from sticky cards on Sunday 

Overall the experience was enjoyable as well as beneficial for us and the greenhouse facilities. We learned time management skills in the greenhouse, improved on team work, and an overall understanding of how a greenhouse is run on a day to day basis.