Beth Shalom Nursury.
Stage 1 – Genesis Nursery
We are now in full swing with the first stage of our local Project Genesis training centre which is the Genesis Nursery. Up until now I’ve been working part time on this project but God has allowed me over the last few months to able to work full time on the nursery. As a result much progress has been achieved in four main areas.
1. Installation of water pipes – We have dug trenches and laid 50mm poly pipe to three separate taps in various locations for the nursery irrigation system. This 50mm pipe is gravity fed from a storage dam above the nursery and most of the water used in the nursery will be from this system. We have also laid a new 25mm poly pipe from the perimeter fence to the propagation house and shed. This is mains water fed from the town water supply and is used for drinking water and the mister system in the propagation house. We also installed a water meter on this line to keep a record of mains water usage. So now we have fresh clean drinking water in our work shed after installing a second hand sink unit we purchased from a salvage business.
2. The second area we have been busy with is the construction of the propagation house. We had already built the frame and poured the concrete slab floor over the last 3 years. We now have a fully operational and automatic propagation house completed. We built the benches from galvanised steel tubing and cement sheet. The roof is double skinned U.V. Treated plastic with an air layer between skins. The irrigation pipe for the misting system is class 12 white poly pipe (high pressure). The misting system is operated via a sensor, which is connected to solenoid valves. This system is fully automated with the sensors adjusting the heat and light intensity. Water is pumped through the mister lines by a high-pressure pump that is connected to a 1000 litre holding tank. Ventilation is automatic with a sensor connected to an exhaust fan which turns on when the heat in the propagation house reaches 25 degrees centigrade. The whole system has exceeded my best expectations in regards to performance and reliability; already we have taken a large number of cuttings and seedlings off the benches and into the shade house. We praise the Lord for his help with the construction of this building and its success in terms of striking cuttings.
3. The third area that has kept us busy is actually filling up the propagation house with cuttings. We have taken many varieties of shrubs, trees and groundcovers. These cuttings are about 7 10 cm long and placed in small 25 mm tubes with propagation mix in them. They take about 2 months to grow roots then another 2 weeks to harden off before we can pot them up into 100 mm pots. We have taken off our first batch of rockery plants that will be potted up soon.
4. The forth area that we have worked on is finishing the shade house. We built paths using treated pine boards and then used gravel to lay in the pathways. The nursery beds were then filled with sawdust that we bought from a sawmill. This sawdust can later be used in a compost heap when it becomes old and rotted. So the shade house is now finished ready for all the struck cuttings to be potted up and placed on the sawdust beds. We have been busy with the potting up during November and December.
We will continue to develop the nursery stage of the Project Genesis training centre over the next year or two until we get to the point where we are financially self-sufficient with the sale of plants produced through the nursery. Once again you can follow our progress over the next few years via the web site at www.projectgenesis.com .
