Tag Archives: greenhouse

On the 24th of March, members of our group met at the City of Reading greenhouse for our fifth day of hands-on work. Our goal for the day was to help get the greenhouse ready for the upcoming open house – this involved emptying expired plant pots, replanting many overgrown plants by separating them and planting them in individual pots to sell at the open house as well as arranging plants throughout the greenhouse. Recycling dead plant material into new material for replanting and dividing overgrown plants is something that fascinated our group and we’re glad to get the opportunity to try it out today! 🙂

The following tasks were performed by us throughout the day:

• Collecting, picking up and moving expired plant containers

  
  

• The collected containers were then emptied out – separating the plant matter (which was collected in a bucket) and the dirt (which was collected in the tray)

  

• Peat-moss was then added into the tray in which we collected the dirt from all the containers

We now shifted our focus to helping re-pot and plant different varieties of plants. The following steps were followed for each type of plant:

Cactus Plants:

• • A new container was filled partly with the mixture of peat moss and dirt created above

    

  • The cactus plant was then inserted into the container

    

  • More dirt/peat-moss mixture was added to the container to ensure that the cactus plant is firmly fixed in the container

    

  • These steps were repeated for two other cactus plants of the same type. You can see the three cactus plants in the image below after they had been planted

    

  • The cactus plants were then watered

    

  • Manure was collected from the pile outside the greenhouse and added to the tray

    

  • We found another cactus plant that needed to be planted, so we used the mixture of dirt and manure to plant it (following the previous steps noted above)

    

  • In addition to these four cactus plants, a different type of cactus plant was re-potted. The before and after photos of this cactus plant can be seen below:

    Before:
    

After: (plant was repotted using new container, mixture of manure/dirt and tiny weeds growing were removed)

Aloe Vera Plants:

Just like the cactus plants, multiple aloe vera were planted using the mixture of manure/dirt and the steps noted above.

Bromeliad Plants:

Many of these were planted using the mixture of manure/dirt that was created earlier. The image below shows one of the final products of the bromeliad plant.

Putting together a hydroponic plant:

On the 16th of March, members of our group met at the City of Reading greenhouse for our fourth day of hands-on work. Our goal for the day was to plant four Barbados nut (Jatropha curcas) plants. This plant is popularly used in the production of bio-fuels. In addition to this, our group also helped replant a 34 year old orange tree into a larger container (Throwback to Day 2 of hands-on work where we planted several orange trees).The following tasks were performed throughout the day to reach our end goal of planting the Barbados nut plants:

• Collecting buckets of saw dust, manure and heavy dirt from the piles present outside the greenhouse

  

• We collected two buckets of each of the following four piles:
  • Saw Dust: Acts just like peat moss, helping create a bio-web and acts as sponge to pull nutrients.
  • Manure 1: Animal waste that is broken down by bacteria, in turn used by plants. This pile consisted of waste from chicken.
  • Manure 2: Similar to Manure 1. However, this pile consists of waste from rabbits. Manure helps add both biological material as well as nutrients.
  • Heavy Dirt: Acts as a structure for the plant to hold onto.

• Taking the buckets back into the greenhouse and putting the contents of the bucket into a tray

• Mixing the collected saw dust, manure and heavy dirt in the tray to create an even mixture

• Gathering the Barbados nut plants

• Removing the plants from their current buckets

• Removing the cup and dirt present around roots

• Removing the singular water container (the white pipe) and dumping out the contents present in the container

We met an unexpected friend while digging out the dirt 🙂

• Adding in the cup and the singular water container container back into the emptied out container

• Collecting the mixture of saw dust, manure and heavy dirt created in step 3

• Adding in the plant and the mixture into the container

• Leveling the mixture and making sure that the plant is strongly rooted in the container

• These same steps were repeated for the remaining Barbados nut plants and in the image below, you can see the Ninja Turtles with the final product!

In addition to this, we replanted an orange tree into a larger container. The following steps were performed:

• Gathered the orange and a large pot

• Removed the orange tree from it’s existing container and removed the dirt around its roots

• The large pot was then filled up with the mixture created in step 3 and the tree was added into the pot

• Lastly, all the plants were watered.

A fruit from the orange tree