The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

December 26, 2008

Caring for Your Poinsettia

Filed under: Flowers,Greenhouse,Houseplants,Indoor Gardening,Potted Plants — Tags: , , , , , , — bob @ 8:35 pm

Our Poinsettias turned out wonderful this year.

The color and size were outstanding.

We grew about 250 poinsettias of various colors: marble-pink, burgundy, white, and of course, red.

We started giving them out about mid-December and sent the last ones out on the 23rd.

To keep your poinsettia going for as long as possible, you need to follow just a couple of simple guidelines.

First, keep in mind that most poinsettias die from over-watering. Your home probably has a lower quality of sunlight than the greenhouse from which it came, so your plant will be less actively growing and therefore need less water.

So, let the pot dry out some before watering. Then water the plant thoroughly until water flows out of the bottom of the pot.

If any water remains in the foil pot-wrapper, dump it out. It is this extra water in the foil that causes main reason of poinsettias dying prematurely;  waterlogged roots.

Don’t worry about fertilizer for your plant, it won’t really need much until spring. A half-strength dose of water soluble fertilizer once in a while should be adequate.

Also, keep in mind that poinsettias weren’t meant to last too much longer than the Christmas season.  They were bred for color, not hardiness.

Enjoy your poinsettia as a reminder of wonderful Christmas memories.

Bob

December 10, 2007

This Year’s Poinsettia Varieties

Filed under: Flowers,Greenhouse,Houseplants,Indoor Gardening,Potted Plants — Tags: , , , , — bob @ 4:32 pm

It’s been a while since I last posted an article here, but that doesn’t mean that things have slowed down in the garden and greenhouse.

Christmas is just around the corner, so for us that means Poinsettias are the focus of our work.  Actually, the poinsettias have been in the greenhouse since September.  As a result, here in the greenhouse, Christmas has slowly crept up since that time. We’ve watched them grow from small, green cuttings to full colorful plants.

Greenhouse Poinsettias

We’ve been so used to the greenhouse being full of Poinsettias, that it’s hard to believe that they will all be gone soon.

Some of the plants have already been given away last week.

Many people are not aware that there are different Poinsettia varieties, just like there are different varieties of tomatoes.  Through the years, plant breeders have developed varieties for not only color, but, also growth habit (short or tall), leaf shape (smooth or lobed), maturity date (early, mid, or late) and other characteristics.

One very important development in  Poinsettia breeding is the ease of production.  The old varieties needed to be covered with a black shade cloth during a period of their life cycle.  Any light, even from street lamps at night, could cause the crop to fail to bloom.

Fortunatly, this is not as critical anymore.

This year, we are growing three varieties of Poinsettias.

Premium Red Poinsettia

Premium Red is our main crop, we have about 150 of those.

Sonora White

Sonora is our white variety, there’s about 40 of them.

Marblestar Poinsettia

Marblestar is a pink and white variety.  We have about 50 of those.

Greenhouse Poinsettias  of Almost all of our Poinsettias are grown in 6″ pots, except for a couple  dozen 10″ pots.

In two weeks time the greenhouse will be empty of Poinsettias except for a few that we will continue to grow. A couple will be saved for taking cuttings for next year’s crop, while a few more will be left to grow into larger plants for Christmas of 2008.

Bob

February 24, 2007

Kitty Greens

Filed under: Animals,Indoor Gardening — Tags: , — bob @ 3:49 pm

From what I gather, cats require a certain amount of “green food” in their diet to keep their digestive tract on track and their general health…umm…healthy.

Because our cat, Friskie, prefers to stay in the house most of the time, Judy suggested a while back that we grow some “greens” for her ( the cat I mean, Judy already gets lettuce from the greenhouse ).

So, several days ago I liberated one of our used greenhouse flats from the recycling pile and sowed a crop of “cat grass”.

I decided to use some left over grass seed we had saved from last year. I just filled the flat with our regular starting mix then, in half of the flat I planted a fescue variety and on the other, a bent-grass variety.

Now, about a week and a half later, the grass is about 2-3 inches high. It is very soft and tender and does look good enough to eat, especially the bent-grass. This afternoon, when we brought the flat into the house, it took Friskie all of 2 minutes to find that lucsious tray of “kitty salad” and start chowing down on it.

We plan to just leave it in the house in an out of the way spot so she can have some whenever she wants… her own fresh salad bar!!

Now, where did I put that bottle of Neuman’s Own……?

Bob

January 14, 2007

How Are Things In Gloccamora?

Filed under: Flowers,Houseplants,Indoor Gardening — Tags: , , , , , — bob @ 10:36 am

The reason I ask is, begosh an’ begora, our “Shamrocks” arrived Friday! Every year we grow potted plants to give away on St. Patrick’s Day. As you know Shamrocks are the traditional plants, however, Oxalis is more commonly grown these days because they are much more showy and reliable than the originals.

I’ve grown real Shamrocks in the past and they are rather plain compared to our newer varieties. There is still a small patch of them growing against the west side of the greenhouse.

Normally, Oxalis is grown from small roots or tubers. A few are placed in the bottom of a pot and the plants grow from there. This year we decided to try something different, we ordered tissue culture produced starter plants from EuroAmerican, a large plant propagator out in California. They have developed a method of growing Oxalis from tissue culture which is a way of growing Oxalis without seeds or tuber by using nearly microscopic pieces of the plant.

This method has been around for quite a few years. I actually worked on tissue culture back in the late ’70′s when it first got started… but I digress. Some plants are easier to propagate this way than others. For example, nearly all Hostas are now grown by tissue culture. EuroAmerican has the size and budget to develop these types of products. As a result they have come up with six different varieties of Oxalis, three of which are new this year. We opted for the more traditional looking ‘Charmed Jade’ variety which has green leaves and white flowers. Others have yellow flowers and or reddish or purple leaves.

This line of plants from EuroAmerican are sold around the country and locally under the PW or ” Proven Winners” brand.

Time will tell whether or not we will abandon the old method of growing Oxalis and continue with the new after this season, but I’m excited by the possibilities of the new method. The tissue cultured varieties are only hardy to zone 8 so they will not survive a Michigan winter. The older varieties are hardly to zone 5 which makes them a perfect addition to our perennial gardens.

Top O’ the Mornin’ to Ya!

Bob

December 10, 2006

Why, Hello there little sprout!Sprouting seeds

Filed under: Indoor Gardening — bob @ 7:57 am

You get the whole cycle of gardening… planting, growing, harvesting. Yes,ML (comments), I believe sprouting counts as gardening.
This blog is not just for people with gobs of money, fancy greenhouses and stuff. A homemade coldframe for example, can be used in place of a greenhouse well into the fall.

I still have 4 coldframes with lettuce growing in them right now.

Good things from the garden… Bob

Is sprouting gardening? Definitely. There are plants there that are growing and you keep an eye on them till they reach the right stage, and then harvest. That’s gardening. Nutrition wise , it’s loaded.

The sprouter that I have is ingenous. It has five trays set on top of each other. Water is added at the top and floods that top tray, wetting all the seeds. Then the water , thru siphoning action, flows up and down a tube to the next tray and floods that one. Same thing with the third and fourth tray. The fifth tray at the bottom just collects the water until I empty it. This gets done once or twice a day for 3 to 5 days. If the sprouter is put in the sunlight the last day, the sprouts will turn green. The sprouts can be harvested all at once, rinsed well in a colander to get the seed hulls off and stored in the fridg. I would think that the harvest could be staggered but I haven’t tried that. I use brocolli seeds but there are others to choose from.

It’s a lot of fun and does satisfy that need to be tending a growing thing.

Bye for now, Judy

sprouting seeds is gardening

Seeds for sprouting http://www.johnnyseeds.com/c-245-sprouts.aspx

More sprouting information http://sproutpeople.org/seeds.html

« Newer Posts

Powered by WordPress