Chris and Rob Weekend Duty

Open House

                We came in Friday knowing roughly what our weekend was going to be like - prepare for the open house! Make this place look great for prospective students and for the public eye! With this in mind we decided to get the majority of the hard and dirty work done on Friday so that we could spend the rest of our day getting cleaned up and ready for Saturday! Between the two of us we managed to water the entire crop specific to their nutritional needs and we fixed the slow release fertilizer on the Alocasia crop – too much had been put on the week before. The way we corrected this mistake was pretty simple, we scraped all of the excessive fertilizer off and put the correct amount of 1 tsp on rather than 1 tbsp. There was an aphid problem in the greenhouse mostly attacking the Tradescanthia - Rob dealt with this problem by removing the Tradescanthia from the hanging baskets. Rob also helped Jeff with the hook up of the trailer wiring on the tractor. We worked until around 1 and then we decided to take lunch, to the Outback Shack! After enjoying our lunch, we headed back to the greenhouse to work the rest of the afternoon. Our Friday afternoon consisted of seeding coleus and portulaca, this took us quite some time because there were roughly 1000 seeds per bottle! We made three trays of 288’s of each plant and put them in the germination chamber. It took us some time because the seeds where so small and hard to work with, we managed though! Throughout the day there were many plant sales, roughly $190 worth of sales! It was nice having customers because it adds another perspective of the business, it’s not only just working in the greenhouse, you get to see the front end as well. We spent the last 2 hours of our day cleaning the greenhouse in preparation for Saturday!

Saturday:

        We arrived on a beautiful morning in anticipation of the Fanshawe College Open House, which showcases our program for perspective students. We started our day by checking the crops ensuring that they all looked happy and full of life. After completing the morning checklist we went into the school and dropped off some hydrangeas by the bookstore corridor to showcase what we have done this year. It got busy quickly with a constant flow of people coming into the greenhouse to talk about the Horticulture Techician program. During the day we had some extra help from the first year students, and with their help we potted some of the Gold Spot Plectranthus and made some new cuttings for the propagation chamber. Over the weekend we had a quota to get 300  pots of the Gold Spot Plectranthus, we managed to get 330 pots and we made an additional 48 cuttings that we put in the propagation chamber. The first year students also helped us clean the algae off of the propagation chamber. The majority of our day though was helping prospective students and selling plants. We had a lot of potential students that came by today interested in the program which took up a lot of our time on Saturday. After the conclusion of the Fanshawe Open House we watered the entire greenhouse as it could have made a hazard having a wet floor during the hours of the open house. After watering the crop we did a quick cleaning before we went home for the evening.

Sunday:

                We arrived ready for our last day of weekend duty; we started by walking the crop and ensuring germination and propagation chambers were all in working order.  We then went into the school before we had to open our cash till for potential customers to check on our plants in the interior of the building.  When we got back to the greenhouse we started by taking cuttings of more Gold Spot Plectranthus as well as transplanting a few that we were unable to pot yesterday. This took us to our first break, after which we potted some Millet seeds and washed some used pots and trays that we put back into storage. Lunch came before we knew it - yay the final greenhouse weekend duty is almost done and to this point the weekend has been a success.  After lunch we completed our E.C and pH testing, which determined that the E.C test was low most likely because of the lack of fertilizer since we are trying to harden the plants off for customers. Also, the pH was low as well but not far off the goal of 1.5. We then started our blog and paperwork that is due at the end of weekend duty. After completing those tasks we cleaned and ensured the crop was watered and healthy.

Overall the weekend was a success; the open house went well with many prospective students attending. We sold many hydrangeas and people were very happy with the selection of succulents and cacti and especially the hydrangea color selection.  As you can see we have a lot of space that has opened up on our benches. But it won’t be long till we have another crop on the go. Thanks for reading, 'till next time…….

Chris and Rob