Pot on

Tuesday 6 July

This morning was more bamboo trimming and chatting with Steve. He had to head off early so I was tasked with doing the watering again. It's quite enjoyable, even though it takes ages, because a lot of the plants I'm watering are herbs and so the air is perfumed while you're watering - even nicer when the sun's out! Apparently I'm up at the main site on Thursday, helping out a lass called Emma (who showed us round the temperate biome back in January), so am to report up there for 10am.

Wednesday 7 July

With the bamboo trimming complete, Maureen asked me to sow various seeds that should have been done a few days ago. Michael showed me how to fill sweet pea trainers with compost (they are bottomless) but it took me more than a few goes to get the compost to stay put rather than dropping out of the bottom. Fresh, moist compost made it much easier, and into these I sowed chickpea seeds (far too many, as it turned out), and then went on to sow Lens (lentils), three types of squash, some Indigo and some beans. Once I finished I went to help Michael, and was tasked with potting on Salvia cuttings (got quite speedy at that) and then Steve brought over some Angelica plugs that needed potting on. I wasn't sure whether I had to remove the plant from the plug so I had a look at some other pots in the greenhouse and they all seemed to still be in the plug, so I left them as they were and potted them up. A huge long moth flew out of one of the pots (possibly an Orange Footman?), giving me a bit of a fright...

After lunch Michael asked me to pot up some Impatiens (which are apparently destined for the Core building, for the photosynthesis machine display!). First we cut large squares of fleece, then filled the pots halfway with hydroponic clay beads before popping the plants out of their pots, wrapping the fleece round their roots and then filling around the root ball with more beads and then giving them a good watering.

Afterwards I went up to the tropical greenhouse with Maureen and Michael to look at the air pots they were trialling. Maureen and Tim are growing balsa seedlings in normal 9cm pots and in these pots that allow the roots to grow down (rather than spiralling) and then be air-pruned (dehydrated), which then prompts the plant to send out secondary and tertiary roots, creating a better root ball. The air pot plants were smaller, but had better root formation.

Before heading home Maureen asked me to sort out the basil plants in the Venlo greenhouse so that volunteers can take them home tomorrow (apparently I am welcome to take some too :), so I battled with some indignant bees and moved everything around. Fingers crossed I'll be able to take a few of them home - there was sweet basil, purple basil, lemon basil and a curious curly-leaved one.