Week in photos - Week of Feb 23

Greenhouse group meeting - Feb 27th

Meeting minutes.

News:
• Members Award application is available for download
(Deadline is March 13th )
• Joint meeting is Thursday, March 12th with guests from other colleges.
• Greenhouse books* are available, keep yourself updated and this is a great source of information for the next generation.
• Lots of cucumbers and tomatoes are in the cooler.
• Lettuce is available for harvest, check for sign on the flood floor.
• Coffee and tea are available in the coffee room.
• New tools are available such as step stools, latex gloves, syran wraps, fruit storage bag, as well as brown bag.

Greenhouse information:
• Greenhouse budget is available for review here.

Member appreciation:
• Lunch bag will be provide for volunteers during any event.

Recruit:
• Looking for new greenhouse manager, co-manager as well as group leaders.
(Tentative nominate date is March 18th)

*There are four separate books for four main crops, such as herbs, peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers.The group leader is responsible for keeping the book available to group members, as well as recording information on their crop.Members are responsible for keeping track of their attendance, as well as reporting any work or diseases during their time slot.All the book are place on the HortClub shelf where all the tools are for easy access.

Joint meeting

"Rooted" is an on campus club whose members have a particular focus on local food production, especially through urban gardening and helping to preserve our loacl ecosystems. The HortClub and Rooted are planning to hold a joint potluck at the Agriculture Greenhouse. Rooted is interested in seeing the greenhouse project and hearing about HortClub activities. I think it is a great to have so much interest in horticulture on campus (never enough!) and since both clubs seem to have common interests, a joint potluck at the greenhouse seemed like a good idea.

Please vote on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday by Feb.27.

Thanks

Karen Tanino

Harvesting time

Hello HortClub greenhouse members,

Harvesting time: --> Exciting

Lots of tomatoes are ready for harvest. You can start harvesting, but remember not to harvest all the ripen tomatoes. Leave some left as these ripen ones will produce ethylene, which will speed up the ripening process for other tomatoes. You can find a tray in the cooler and leave all the tomatoes in the blue box as indicated. Some of the "Trust" variety are ready for harvest as well.

For cucumbers, I have been harvesting and placing some cucumbers in the same blue box with the tomatoes. Cucumber group can start harvesting those similar in size to the one indicated in the photos. There're around 3-4 eggplants that are ready for harvest, and I left them for you to pick yourself :) . Remember to wrap up all the cucumbers before placing them into the blue box for longer storage. Without proper wrapping, the cucumbers will go bad quickly.

Solution for the fresh herbs: we can dry them. Herb group is responsible for cutting the herbs, and placing them in a brown bag. Please let me know when you're ready, so I can come and pick them up, or you can bring them to the agriculture building and give me a call. Chamile, basil, oregano, catnip, etc are ready for cutting, therefore you guys may want to do it some time this week.

Peppers are doing well, but not quite mature enough for harvest. So please wait a little longer until they change color. We didn't plant any green peppers, since green peppers are not worth the effort to grow in the greenhouse. If you compare the price of colored peppers to green peppers in the store, then you will easily understand our reason.

Working time: --> Not so exciting

Tomatoe group may want to spend some time lowering the cherry tomatoes (ie. arrange at a steeper slant). They're growing fast and are getting big again. Please, please be careful with the tomatoes !!! I have seen many broken main stems, and it will take a very long time for the plants to produce another main shoot. By the time they're back, they probably will not make it since they'll be overlapped by other plants. So be extra careful when you're working with the main stems. Last but not least, keep shaking --> yield is looking good.

The cucumbers are doing all right. The small cucumbers are going fast, and hopefully we can get some cucumbers soon. The old cucumbers are looking green again. Even though they're quite damaged by insects, we can still get some cucumbers along the way. Keep watching out for white flies, since I've seen a few. Thank you Nathalie; it was a good idea to keep documenting what you've done, so that other people can know what's been done and what to expect. Other groups may want to do the same.

As far as I know there is only one member working on the peppers. Therefore are there any volunteers willing to work with the peppers. If no one is interested I will step in.

Herb group alway has it easy going, but you guys may want to start harvesting and putting the herbs in bags, so I can dry them in phytotron. Let me know when you guys plan on doing it.

That's all, thanks everyone

Peter Le.

HortClub's cooler

Hi everyone,

I'm the only one who's cleaning up the cooler nowadays, and this is not cool at all. Everyone is welcomed to take stuff from the cooler, but you need to clean up after yourself. Take a closer look at the photo; people are not only taking stuff, but are specifically looking for good produce, which messes the whole pile up.

This is the first and last notice. If this happens again, the combination lock will be changed and only members who help out in the greenhouse will get the code.

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

Peter Le

New stepstool.

I got this step stool for your convenience. From now on you don't have to carry the heavy woody chair around when you're pruning those tomato and cucumber plants.

I also got a box of latex gloves for everyone; you can find the box on the HortClub's shelf in the loading dock area. Please do not remove the box.

Peter Le.

Week in photos (Week of Feb 9)

Student's life

Start of the semester:



First week:



Second week:



Before the mid-term test:



Once know the exam schedule:



7 days before exam:



6 days before exam:



5 days before exam:



4 days before exam:



3 days before exam:



2 days before exam:



1 day before exam:



Night before exam:



1 hour before exam:



During the exam:



Walking out from the exam hall:



After the exam, during the holiday:

Plant instruction care

FRESH HERBS:
If not used immediately, the herbs can be stored in the freezer and they will be great for soups and stews.

PLANT CARE:

Basil
Basil is best kept in medium-rich, moist soil with a pot that drains excess water. Keep in full sun and in a warmer part of the house. Basil leaves are best used fresh in pasta sauces or on pizzas. Always add near the end of cooking so that it doesn’t lose its aroma.

Sage
Keep sage in full sunlight. It is important to keep the soil moist. If re-potting, use a light soil and make sure the water can drain through the bottom. Harvest leaves before they flower. Sage tastes great in stuffing and on meats such as pork.

Catnip
Keep in moist soil and in a sunny place. The leaves and stems of catnip can be infused for tea.

Thyme
Thyme grows best in moist, gritty soil under the sun. The leaves taste great fresh or dried on any meat!

All the pots were filled with greenhouse special soil less media + perlite. The media is disease free and the perlite helps to maintain adequate aeration in the pots. Herbs don't require lots of care and water, but do need some sunlight for photosynthesis. Place your herbs near big windows, or where light is available.
Water twice a week and always make sure that the water drains out the bottom. In most cases, people water the top soil, but fail to water enough causing the bottom soil layer to dry out. With twice a week watering schedule, you will never over water. Always use temperate water to prevent root shock.

Please let us know what you think and what plant do you prefer, so that we can do better in the future.

Once again, thanks for supporting the HortClub.

Brought to you by the Horticulture Club - Greenhouse group.

Nutritional information available here

HortClub Herb Sale

This year the HortClub is hosting a herb sale. This is a brand new venture, and we hope it will be well received by students and faculties alike.

To those who are new to the HortClub, we are a student-organized club based on campus that focus on all things horticultural. One of our project is the greenhouse project. Our main focus are student hand-on experiments outside the classroom and producing fresh produce that are both sustainable and affordable.

In the past, we provided fresh produce to CHEP and on campus Foods Service.











List of potted plants that will be in the herb sale:

Herbs:
Green basil
Purple basil
Catnip
Thyme
Sage

Flowers:
Double columbine
Carnation

Fresh herbs: U pick ~ fill a bag with your selected herbs.
Basil
Thyme
Oregano
Sage
Peppermint
Catnip
Swiss chard

Here are some pictures of our greenhouse as well as the plants we are currently growing:

For plant care instructions, please click here

Please let us know what you think and what plant do you prefer, so that we can do better in the future.

Thank you for supporting the HortClub.

Brought to you by the Horticulture Club - Greenhouse Group

Week in photos (Week of Jan 26)

Greenhouse week of Feb 2

Here is updated information

Good news:

The story of greenhouse insects:







5 weeks ago - unwelcomed guest







4 weeks ago - explosion of insect --> extensive damage







3 weeks ago - Bio control taking place








2 weeks ago until now - We're covered.

Insects: Basically the insect population is under control for now. Although they are still around , damages are much less than 2 weeks ago. Most of the herbs and peppers are doing well, and are coming back.


Tomatoes: It is hard to say with certain that we will have a good yield, but we definitely have quite a few tomatoes and some of the cherry tomatoes are ripening. Even though there are some BER (blossom end rot) on selective varieties, overall calcium deficiency is not a concern. There are a few issues with the wilting leaves on selective tomato plants. Once again, this is because of the variety. I don't know why it showed that physical disorder. This could have been caused by a lot of reasons, like water, temperature, fertility regimen, pH, etc. However it would be an interesting question for us to find the cause?

Cucumbers: Due to precipitate and salt built up in the injectors and the fertilizer tanks the cucumbers have not be doing too well. All the injectors and fertilizer tanks have been cleaned, and hopefully they will all work again. Some of the crop-like cucumbers did not get any fertilizer at all for a long period of time. This and insect damage are the reasons why the cucumbers were doing so poorly. And it's not a good idea to feed weak + damaged plants the same way you would healthy plants, so I will tear down all the cucumbers and plant new ones instead.

Lettuce: Lettuce is doing great. ~100 heads are coming up soon. This time, we have 3 different varieties (2 buttercrunch varieties and a leaf lettuce). Don't harvest them before I say so, since all of them are fed with tons of fertilizer --> highly concentrated nitrogen --> toxic --> who wants toxic lettuce? The solution is: before harvest time, ~ 3-4 days earlier, I will water the lettuce with plain water (no fertilizer) to drain out all the fertilizer concentrated in the lettuce, then we can harvest. This is just the recommended practices, but I think it makes sense.

Bad news:

White flies: I have noticed some white flies around on the eggplants. This insect could cause some yield loss for our tomatoes. So we need to keep an eyes on these guys. For the tomato members, if you see significant amounts of them around your tomato plants please let me know. For more information about this insect check here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitefly


Odd news:

The greenhouse is back on track for now. It's up to us to keep it as an experimental learning environment, where we can produce "organic food", or simply learn how to grow plants.

From now on is it possible for the team leader of each group to organize schedules for their team members to come and look after their plants, as well as to report what has done each week? The plants are getting bigger, so regular maintenance needs to be done weekly to make sure the plants are free of disease, and to ensure good yield.

• For the Herbs: Please keep on thinning, trimming, cleaning up dead leaves and planting new herbs where desirable. Please also make a list of the herbs present.
• For the Peppers: Oops... whoever signed up for the Pepper group, please report to your team leader Valerie Adrian at vaa932@mail.usask.ca, since we have a little difficulty in communication.
  
• For the Tomatoes: Please keep pollinating the plants. You guys have done a great job, so keep it up. One more thing, please be extra careful with the tomatoes, since the branches bearing the fruits can easily bend, so put the clips on for extra support if necessary. Keep putting more clip as the plant grow, watch where you put the clips; try to avoid the flowers.
• For the Cucumbers: I have cut down most of the cucumbers, and have planted new ones. Put the clips along the string as the plants grow.

I have lots of midterms coming up, so I won't be around. Please contact me if you're not sure about what to do.

Thanks everyone,

Peter Le.