A visual comparison one month can make.
On the left are pictures from March 9'07, and on the right side from April 8'07. As much tagging as possible is finished, and regular crop maintenance is whats left, besides shipping, of course.
The top left picture is from house 29 looking west, and the top right picture is from the same house from the west looking east.
The bottom two pictures of one gallon vines show a drastic improvement of plant size and maturity. You can also see the new growth in the grasses overhead. The last picture is a nice double white Clematis.
Cross posted at the long "end" and the short of it
Entries by Pete (8)
back on earth
Well, no, I didn't fall from the face of the earth, just crazy busy.
We are near the end of our busiest shipping days. Kind of. In a couple of weeks, most of the perennials we planted this spring will be ready to ship. At least we will have some students in to help. As much as possible, the Hombres (Mexicans) have been doing nursery work. This entails things like: pruning what needs it, spacing what needs it, condensing other blocks that have been decimated by shipping, moving to free up more houses, and of course potting new crops.
I have also been promoted to Assistant Propagator. A new challenge is always welcome for me, as this means more hands-on experience. I have done other propagation in greenhouses, (geranium, chrysanthemum, poinsettia etc.) but never in the nursery. Yet. I will now get to learn perennial, flowering shrub, and hard-wood/softwood rooting and maintenance. And of course grafting in the winter. Coincidentally I seem to have worked up the ladder in an odd fashion. Things seem to have gotten lighter! First I was on the Main Farm, shipping and learning nursery work. (the smallest pot-size was a one gallon, all the way up to a twenty five gallon container.) Mid-summer I was transferred to the Home Farm where I am now. Most of our containers are one gallon, but no more than a three gallon, ornamental grasses in a five gallon excepted. Now I will be handling trays of 18 pack, and jiffy trays.
I will post new pictures soon.
Till next time, cause you never know when that may be!
Cross posted at the long "end" short of it.
Shipping, shipping, shipping.......
What a couple of weeks this has been. Each day has been run, run, run, with little time for anything but work. I was fortunate enough to have my wife and kids stop by work for lunch the other day. What a treat that was. It was raining, so a little sunshine mid-day sure helps. The puddles were a sure magnet for the kids, how can they all be avoided? At least we finish at 5:00 on Fridays and 3:00 on Saturdays.
There hasn't been a day that I've been home before 9:00. (Friday and Saturday excepted) Not bad so far. There will be more nights that I won't be home until 12:00. It's all part of spring shipping. Our Mexican co-workers are doing great as shippers. Some better than others, but overall it is going great.
There are so many things to watch for:
- proper plants/ varieties
- proper picture tags and or pre-pricing
- pot size
- plant maturity: older crop or fresh potted
- shipped on carts, racks, skids, or wooden racks
We also have our own pot-washing station. Almost all of our product goes through a conveyor system where it is pot-washed and six-packed or pre priced. I will post about that at another time!
Cross posted at the long "end" the short of it.
Picture Comparisons
Fresh Pictures
I took a few snapshots today while doing pick-ups with my brother. He is pushing more potted plants than he has working for my other brother. There is a huge selection of potted plants from local greenhouses, and his clientele are very happy. They love their fresh Canadian product, cut flowers and potted. Just think, delivered straight from the greenhouses to their door, in sometimes less than 24 hours. Now THAT'S FRESH!
Pictures from top left to right:
Hydroponic Tulips (Different from here)
6" Pink Hydrangea
Asiatic Lilies for cut flowers
6" Blue Hydrangea
4.5" Gerbera
6" Cyclamen
I plan on talking to each of the growers from these greenhouses as well as others, so I can post more details about each.
Cross-Posted at:
The long end the short of it
March Break
What a shock when I arrived to work on Monday. I knew to expect some students for the break, but there must have been 50 or 60 of 'em! Or so it seemed. Well, at least 35. Most are local 8th and 9th grade students, some with no previous experience. .
Since November, there hasn't been more than 20 people at the farm, not including sales and office staff.
We have already finished a lot of different things, from tagging in the nursery, to planting in the Big House. We finished as many tags as we had, our new tags will be coming in soon. My knees feel like I borrowed them from an 80 year old. All tagging is done on the ground. All day Monday and Tuesday. Fortunately, we may step on the pots, as all the plants are dormant right now, and the soil is frozen so we won't do much crushing with our feet.
The propagation crew is busy with transplanting, although I am not entirely sure what is all on their agenda. My own work keeps me running as it is, and I can't see getting too much valuable information from any of the kids. I'll learn more of the prop end after the majority of the shipping is finished. Probably in September!
On Thursday our first four Amigos arrive to our farm, with the option to start work right away, or get all settled in during the weekend. If I know any of them from last year, they will jump right in. The next group is to arrive the following week.
They have bumped our hours from 8:00-4:00 Mon-Thurs, 8:00 - 12:00 Fri during the winter, to 8:00-4:30 this week, and next week 8:00-5:00. Slowly but surely, the spring rush is upon us. It won't be long before we will be working 7:30- the last truck is loaded.(could be midnight)
I'm not sure how often I will be able to post, but you can rest assured I will keep updating as the farm lets me. I plan on posting "staged" pictures, to show the nursery throughout the year. This should be fun!!
Cross-Posted at The long end the short of it
Cool Tulip Tour
This morning I went on a great greenhouse tour. Basically on the Dunville/ Wainfleet border, is a cool greenhouse. Nothing like I have ever seen before. In our area, that is hard to come by. I've been in all sorts of greenhouses, either working or touring, and this was
definitely new to me.
In Holland over the past years, they have been working on hydroponically growing bulb plants. Apparently, there are only three
or four hydroponic tulip growers in Canada. I received a phone call the other night by one of the few operations. We set up an appointment so I could have a tour of the operation. The least I can do is walk away with more knowledge as well as really cool pictures.
The owner walked me through the whole process, from importing the
bulbs, to final shipped product. He has a lot of automation as well, mainly for bunching and packing the final product.
Bulbs come in from Holland, and are stored at a cool enough temp to
keep the bulbs dormant. When they are ready for planting, the bulbs are brought out of the cooler and put on a hopper. The hopper is raised, and the bulbs are gravity fed onto a short conveyor belt. Staff then take the bulbs and set them in crates that are lined with pins. There
is a water reservoir built into the tray, so when the bulbs start to push
out roots, they have an ample supply of food.
After the bulbs are planted, they are put back into another cooler until
they are ready for forcing in the greenhouse. They are warmed up slightly, to ensure good rooting in cold storage. The rooted plants are now ready to grow. Since they are such a short crop, and not grown during insect season (summer) pesticides are rarely if ever used. This makes for an even more enjoyable atmosphere. And clean throughout.
All the floors are concrete, so disinfecting over the summer is a cinch. Concrete floors also let all excess water out through holes drilled at 1 foot spacings into under drainage. Irrigations in the greenhouse are done by boom sprayer in the growing area, until the plants are moved into the harvesting area. Then it is done by hand. The grower will try to top up the plants before moving over to reduce the amount of hand- watering.
Harvesting is also fast paced. A few criteria must be followed: bloom maturity and stem length are the two key factors. I had the opportunity to talk to some staff for a couple of seconds, then realized I was being a hindrance. He needed another cart to pick into. After harvesting, the tulips, bulbs and all are brought over to the packing line. Two people place the tulips onto a conveyor. They are swept down the line through different stations as they go.
- placed on the line by 2 people
- bulbs are cut off by machine, waste is augured into a bin (minimal clean-up)
- four people pick up the prepped stems and align 10 blooms to the same height
- bunches are set back onto the next belt, where they are tied together by machine, and bottoms are trimmed to ensure uniform length within each bunch
- two people sleeve the bunches, and are tied once more to help keep the stems together, as well as to hold the sleeve in place
- ten bunches of tulips are set into a pail, and off they go. 100 stems per pail.
- pails may or may not be boxed, dependant on where they are going
Space is always maxed out, there isn't any money in empty square footage! I am hoping that the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" will help fill in any blanks, but feel free to ask questions. I'll reply to comments ASAP.
Cross posted at the long end the short of it
Posted on Saturday, January 27, 2007 at 10:19PM
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Pete
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Pete
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Back At It
Today is my first day back at work (at the nursery), after three weeks off for the Christmas holidays.
(photo Weeping Pussy Willow)
I had just learned how to do a "side veneer" graft before our break. Today I checked out the progress. We had started with grafting a few different Salix (willow) varieties. I was astounded to see that both the scion wood (the new variety grafted to the top) and understock (the stem we want to support the new scion wood) have budded and started to leaf out. This is great because now we can start to see if the graft has taken. If not, the scion wood is starting to collapse. If it has collapsed, we have the choice to re-graft or throw out the understock.
Salix is a wonderful variety to learn on, as it is very easy to graft. Salix is also considered a "weed" plant, as it is simple to grow. This morning we removed the lower shoots off of the understock to draw the energy to the scion wood. We left 4-5 "suckers" (side shoots) nearest to the top to help drive the plant in the right direction. When all is said and done, we will have a nice assortment of, but not only, Salix standards.
Thank-you Larry, for asking me to post on your blog!
Cross-Posted at the long end the short of it