Thursday, September 30, 2010

A break from vacation posts for one about pansies in the greenhouse



One of our Master Gardener projects is working with the special needs students in the greenhouse we built for them last year. They grow begonias in the spring and pansies in the fall. This week when I was picking up the pansy plugs I asked the grower if he would be open to selling a flat to me for my own use. I told him about my new little greenhouse and that I'd like to try some there. So he sold me a flat.

Now pansy plugs are very small (thimble size), see the top photo and a flat has 288 plants. So, after working with the kids planting theirs, I came home and started planting mine. I had to use the little four inch pots that I've been accumulating and they all had to be washed in a bleach solution before using them. I had about 300 pots. So now the table side of the greenhouse is filled with 288 pansies and they're going to require daily care for the next six weeks or so. It's going to be an interesting experiment. When something goes wrong in a larger project like this the loss is a bigger loss - so I'll be watching all of the variables to be sure they are all correct. Mine greenhouse has a bit too much shade this time of year so that could be a problem.

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