Monday, April 5, 2010

my new job

In addition to all the fun I've been having with my projects, I've also been working 2 days a week at my brother in law's greenhouse. I really have been enjoying my time there, mainly because the other people that work there are a riot and they make it a lot of fun! 6 hours goes by in no time at all! (Plus, it is nice to get a paycheck, I gotta say!!) I've been doing it for a few weeks already, and it's been so nice to greet spring (even before it really felt like spring) by seeing all the bright colors blooming in the greenhouse and getting my hands all dirty in the soil.

Speaking of soil, my brother in law taught me a valuable bit of info that I will never forget, and so I'd like to pass on to you. He so graciously explained to me the different between soil and dirt. Yes, according to him, there is a difference; flowers are not planted in dirt, you see. As per Joe, soil is what things are planted in; dirt is what you sweep up off the floor. I think of this any time I ever hear the word soil.

Anyway, I thought maybe you'd like a glimpse of what I've been digging my fingers into lately!

This is the soil machine that fills the flats with soil for us to transplant the plugs into. (Seeds are planted much earlier, grow into teeny tiny little plants that are called plugs; then we transplant them into bigger containers so they can keep on growin'!) The soil machine fills the containers, scrapes them level and the conveyor belt spits them out the other side. Then they get stacked along side the little assembly line that's all set up for us to keep the process moving as quickly as possible.
Here's where we sit to do the planting...
Here you can see the very tiny container that we pull the plugs from, and the larger containers we transplant them in:
Of course, everything has to be labeled right away so we know what everything is. Some people who are much better and more experienced than me can actually tell most all of these things apart; to me, they all just look like green leaves. I'm not a very good greenhouse employee I guess!
As we finish with the trays, someone at the end of the line stacks them on the carts, and someone takes them back out to the greenhouses to get lots of warmth, water and sunshine to keep on getting big and strong! :)
And a big thank you to Beth for the pictures...they are all hers, and I borrowed them from her Xanga site. If you'd like to see more of her amazing photos, of the greenhouse and much, much more, click here.

3 comments:

zz said...

Very educational. I always wondered how they did that. Do you and your sister still have your flower biz?

Aunt Linda said...

Thank you for that lesson! Guess I never really thought of there being a difference between dirt & soil...I never have sweep anything like that up off my my floors!! ROFL...ok, now you know that's not true!

Looks like a fun thing.

Jessi said...

Yep, Zo, still have the flower business, albeit slow. That's okay, though, cuz my sis is about to pop with baby #5!!