Pot Mums for Easter

This is my daughter sitting amongst the Pot Chrysanthemums at our store a couple years back.  Pot Mums are a popular plant for Easter decorating.  They are right up there with Lily's, Tulips, Daffodils, Hyacinths, and Azaleas for folks who enjoy having a little bit of early Springtime in their homes for the Easter holiday.

This season I am again growing Mums for Easter but I cut back my order considerably.  This year, Easter falls on April 20, which is very late.  By that time, a lot of people are already thinking about their gardens and will probably have less interest in pretty but not hardy house plants.  That's right, these Pot Mums are not the same as the Garden Mums that a prolific from late August through October in our area.  Pot Mums are essentially a very nice looking plant but don't expect them to last all season and there's no chance of them coming back next year.

These Pot Mums were shipped in from Florida from cuttings taken by +Aris Horticultre, Inc..  They come from their GreenLeaf plants division.  They were delivered pretty early in the morning which is a good thing because I know they haven't been riding around in a cold UPS truck all day.

I prepare the soil by mixing our standard potting mix with leftover mum mix from last fall.  The mum mix is a bark based soil and contains Osmocote which is a  slow-release fertilizer.  I also get out the 8" and 6" containers which the majority of the Pot Mums will be planted in. 

Opening the first package reveals the Pot Mums and they look to be in pretty good condition for being stuffed in a box for a couple days.  They are sorted by plant variety with 50 rooted cuttings per bag.

I pull out the first bag and it's the Olympia variety.  This is a popular white Pot Mum that sells especially well for the Easter holiday.  The churches that order from us for their Easter mass prefer white because it's the most pure of all colors.

This is what a single rooted Pot Mum cutting looks like. 

In a 6" container I plant four mums per pot.  I angle them outwards slightly so when they grow they will fill out the container out quite nicely.

An 8" container has five mums per pot, with four on the edge and one in the center.  I plant considerably fewer 8" pots then 6".  The 8" obviously have a higher price point because there are more plants and the container is larger.

After planting all 900 mums I have filled an entire greenhouse bench and then some.  Right after planting them they do look a bit ragged but they will become established in their new home before you know it.

I give them all a good drink and also prepare additional fertilizer.  When mums are first becoming established they like to be fed quite heavily.  This helps them during their vegetative state, that is when they are spending their energy making roots, stems, and leaves and before they make buds.

In fact, to prevent the Pot Mums from making buds right away, I have to trick them into thinking the days are longer than they actually are.  Mums think it is time to make buds and flowers when days are short like they are in the winter (the same holds true for fall Garden Mums, that is why under natural light conditions they don't start flowering until late August).  Of course I don't want that to happen right now because I want to sell them in late April, and once they have flowered, that's it.  Above the bench where the mums are I have 2 sets of fluorescent bulbs hooked up to a timer.  I have the timer set to go on every night at 10 pm and shut off at 2 am.  This will interrupt their night cycle and make them continue using their energy for vegetative growth.  This way I can get big, bushy plants before they start to devote their energy to flowers. 

On February 19 I plan on shutting the lights off.  Since these are considered "8-week" Pot Mums, they will take approximately 8 weeks to make their flowers.  This will put me at the Wednesday before Easter, which is just when I want to start retailing them.

Repairing the Speedy Seeder

I mentioned in a previous post that my seeding machine, the Speedy Seeder, seemed rather loud and was not working in the manner it should.  It turns out that it finally quit on me.  Better now than in a few weeks when I really need to sow seeds in order to have my plants ready for Springtime.  Let's have a look and see what can be done about this.

Flipping the Speedy Seeder over reveals the compartment where the magic takes place.  Actually it's just the housing for a specialized vacuum motor.  The problem can only lie within this compartment so let's take it apart.

First I'll unscrew the 4 Phillips screws that hold the lid on.

Then there are two bolts that screw directly into the motor.  They hold the motor in place so when it's running it doesn't vibrate all over the place.  I'll get these unscrewed and then I can remove the lid.

This is what the vacuum motor looks like.  If there's something wrong with it then I imagine the entire motor will have to be replaced.  That is certainly more affordable than purchasing a new Speedy Seeder which is over $700.00!

I took a photo of the label on the motor just in case I need to order the part.  This is an Ametek Lamb Electric Division vacuum motor.  The model number is right on there making my life very easy.

Upon removing the motor from the housing, I flip it over and the problem is staring right at me.  The disc that spins and creates the suction is cracked in several places.  As far as I know it hasn't been dropped so I can only assume that after many, many years of use it has simply broken down as does anything else with moving parts.  This motor is completely sealed and I see no way of taking it apart and replacing the disc so it's time to start searching for the part number.

What did we do before the Internet made our lives so easy?  Scour through a catalog that I may or may not have or call around and ask for this particular motor?  All I had to do was hop on the +Grainger website, enter the manufacturer and the part number and there it was.  And fairly affordable as well.  Bonus.  It was available for pickup the next day.

This is the underside of the new vacuum motor.  I can't wait to get it hooked up and start sowing seeds again.  I'm already a day behind because I was supposed to sow petunias yesterday!  I hope this goes smoothly.

So on the old motor there was a black wire that went to the power switch and there was a white wire that connected to the white wire on the Speedy Seeder.  On the new motor there are 2 black wires and no white wire.  Challenge #1.  This was pretty easy.  Setting the 2 motors side by side, each of the 2 wires originate from separate sides of the motor.  I could only assume that on the new motor the black wire on the left hand side serves the same purpose as the white wire that was on the left hand side of the old motor.  I use a wire nut to connect the new black wire to the white wire on the Speedy Seeder.  I hope I'm right.

The next step was super easy.  The grounding wire from the Speedy Seeder gets screwed underneath the green screw on the new motor.  I really had to crank that screw in to get it to hold.  I used a bit more elbow grease on that step than I had expected but it's nice and snug now.

The third and final wire is the one that hooks up to the power switch.  On the new motor I only have bare wire whereas the old motor had one of those neat little connectors.  I'm not an electrician (obviously) so the only solution I could think of was to snip the power switch wire off the old motor and hook it up to the new power switch wire.

This involved stripping the old wire with this neat wire stripping tool that my father keeps around.  Very handy.

After twisting the new wire to the old I use another wire nut to hold them in place.

Alright it's all hooked up!  Let's put this baby back together and give it a test run.

So this is just ridiculous.  I'm screwing the bolts in that hold the motor in place and they're not going anywhere.  What the heck?  There's no screw threads in the holes in the new motor!  Who designs these things?  You mean I have to make my own threads?  I have no idea what size bolt this is.  Time to visit +Ace Hardware.  I bring the bolt in with me, show the guy working there, and explain my situation.  After he determines the size of the bolt he shows me exactly what I need to get the job done.

This is a high carbon steel plug tap.  I tighten my vice grips around it and turn it into the holes in the new motor just as if it was a screw.  It begins to make the threads.  I have to unscrew it and screw it back in several times so I can clean the metal shavings off of the plug taps.  Now the bolts fit!  They go right in and the new motor is nice and tight in the compartment.  I turn the Speedy Seeder on and it works like new!  Mission accomplished.