Greenhouse weekend duty blog

Thursday, April 11, 2019

On Thursday we started our day in the bustling greenhouse spot watering and monitoring the crop, as right now we are filled wall to wall with plants already sold to contract customers. After our morning walk through and watering we began potting up the last of the Coleus and Begonia plugs into 4 inch pots that were left from the day prior. We than went about organizing these new potted up plugs onto bench 2 and 3 to keep the plants together and organized, as space is very limited. After this we began preparing more 4 inch pot trays and storing them on the metal storage racks to allow for easy use for the herbs we planned on transplanting on Saturday. After this we went about watering the Western Fair baskets as they were beginning to show signs for need of water. I also pulled a few down to allow for spot watering as a couple were very dry due to the drippers not being placed in the pot properly. Next we tackled the stock baskets ensuring we had two of each stock basket and changing the stock inventory online to ensure it was correct, we than went about moving the 4 inch tray pots of the plants we were using for stock baskets to the upper bench and condensed them to allow for maximum space on the benches. We finished the day with some spot watering of the apprentice plant bench and some of the Proven Winners plants throughout the greenhouse. We finished up washing the floors and the tables in our work area and ensured we cleaned up the greenhouse floor as well of any debris that may have fallen on the floor.

Saturday, April 13, 2019

On Saturday we started our day much like Thursday with some spot watering and monitoring the crops. Mostly we spot watered the succulents and cacti as I planned to water the full crop with the 200 PPM mix fertilizer later, and the 350 PPM for the Banana plant and the elephant ear crops. After we went about putting up our sticky cards for our pest report but we had already noticed a fair bit of whitefly Thursday and into the weekend so we knew what the sticky cards might hold. We also noticed the stock baskets were looking very dry so we also watered them with the 200 PPM fertilizer mix until the pots were well saturated. From there we started potting up herbs like Basil, Thyme, Parsley and Chives. 

We started by using the pots we had prepared on Thursday but they quickly ran out as we had so many wonderful smelling herbs to pot so we ended up making a lot more during the process. During this whole process we continued to organize the benches to ensure maximum space for the plants allowing us to keep as many of the herbs together as possible. We had lots of sun throughout the day and we noticed a lot of the crop was beginning to dry out so we went about watering the whole crop with the 200 PPM Fertilizer mix except the Banana Plant, Elephant ears and the seedling trays. This took more time than expected as we were ensuring the pots were well saturated with the fertilizer mix and we didn’t get all the way through the crop to the Banana Plant, Elephant ears, Apprentice bench and the rolling carts full of the Proven Winners so we planned to wrap up the watering Sunday morning.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

On Sunday we started our day by watering the remainder of the crop we had missed Saturday due to time. We noticed near the end that we were just about out of fertilizer of the 200 PPM mix so we decided to mix up another 10 litres. After this we thought it be best to wash down the floors and clean out the drains in the greenhouse to allow for ample time for the floors to dry throughout the day as to not have excess levels of moisture buildup. From there we went about potting up all the succulent into the succulent and cacti media mix which allow for proper drainage for the plants as compared to our normal pro mix soil. We than organized them on the bench in the walkway next to the Christmas cactus cuttings planted by the first year students. 

 We then walked the crop and took down the sticky cards so we could write up our pest report for the weekend. After all that we finished our day by cleaning up the work area and washing down the tables and also cleaning out the floor drains to allow for proper drainage and to ensure a clean working environment free of spores and mold.