Wednesday, June 22, 2011

the nursery...










Got a tour this morning of the Sul Ross greenhouse from Maria the botanist.  My first look at all the Cat's Eye plants she has started from seeds collected last year at The Field Lab.  They are definitely living the easy life under controlled conditions.  Kinda feel like I should be handing out cigars.

Ran a slew of errands including parts for the west greenhouse door, a 16lb. five foot long pry bar (called a San Angelo bar - but I call it a Terlingua tooth pic), and a foot long 1" masonry bit to speed up the hole excavation even more.   BTW....we got a light sprinkle last night for about 10 minutes that was only enough to connect the dots on the ground.  95,101,72,0,B


8 comments:

Rita B. said...

Congratulations on the rain. Houston actually got some today. Helped to put down some of the fires north and northeast of us. Hope we all get more soon. These firefighters need a rest.

Ricky said...

This may sound funny to some but being a farm boy from N.Y. I got to ask this question. Being in texas you have easy access to black powder how come you do not drill a 12" hole 1" around fill it with 3" of black powder put in a squib or fuze and do away with all the prybar work..Just have to know..Rick.

John Wells said...

Ricky....for the same reason I didnt have a backhoe do the work....I want a clean hole - and I need the exercise.

rj said...

Plus blasting can be a little dangerous. You can rent specialized equipment to drill the holes or hire someone, but both of those options are most cost effective when you have a fence to install (eg lots of holes) One thing about rock, you really don't need to go deep, nature has provided a solid foundation already. Just need to keep posts from shifting.

Grandmama Sarah said...

Thinking about your greenhouse and my Dad's nursery in the early 1950's, when we did most of our own propagation.

He used a simple mist house and got phenomenal results even in the humid area a few hundred feet from Galveston Bay where we lived.

This guy does it relatively simply: http://istover.com/misthouse.html

Wondered if you could adapt such to what you're doing.

JLP said...

You could simply drill 4 or more holes in the rock and glue rebar in them and poor a concrete cap connected to the rebar. Why replace good hard rock with concrete. There are epoxys made for just such an application but you can also use plain old portland cement to stick the rods to the rock.

I used to be in the communications tower business and we used existing rock for tower foundations many times.

Doug said...

John,I have gone through all your pics on the Fiel lab home page. I am having a hard time deciding if you are a better carpenter or photographer. Very impressive!..I have sent you a few e-mails concerning your rainwater system. I would like a few more pics at your convenience so I can figure out the way to do it.Thanks alot my friend and stay cool.Doug

Allen Hare said...

I sure like what JLP said about the drilling and epoxying. Seems like it sure would work.

That's a very nice greenhouse they have there at Sul Ross. The plants in pic #1 sure look nice.

Congratulations on the little bit of rain you got. Guess that breaks the dry spell, but only just.

Continued good luck with all your projects.