Bursting at the Seams.

We are bursting at the seams these days.

Plants have taken over nearly every corner of the house, not to mention all the other things we've been madly working on for next week's sale.

Things are coming to a head. I was planning to start moving plants into the greenhouse over the next few days but it looks like we're going to have one more very cold night. Since next week's forecast is excellent, Monday is the day.

And not a moment too soon!

Now it's time to get back to work!

Planting begonia tubers

It's going to be a busy day in the Workroom.

My friend Marlene is coming over with her two girls. They will craft and play (at least, we hope they will craft and play) while we transplant what looks like a bazillion seedlings, most of whom have been hanging over the edges of their pots, begging for just a little more room, desperate to stretch out their roots.

So while we spend the day with our hands in dirt I thought I would give you the chance to do the same.

To that end I am reposting this piece I wrote back in the beginning on how to plant up begonia tubers.

Never done this before??? Neither had I . . .and the end result was a beautiful begonia that bloomed all summer. . .

Enjoy.


Quite some time back, I thought I try something new and plant a begonia tuber.

I had never done this before, as my relatively thrifty soul balked at the price of a tuber.

Of course, come gardening time, it balked even more at the price if the actual plant!

In the interests of my blog readers I felt I should give this a try. That way we could all learn together. This also gives you the advantage of not being out $4 should this fail! (I love it when I can come up with a good excuse!)

The tuber needs to be planted halfway into the soil mix with the concave side upwards and

the pot should only be slightly larger than the tuber .

Begonias have very small root systems. The roots must be all the way to the edge of the container before you transplant it into a larger pot.

Cover with soil.



Water.
And here, my dear friends, is where I ran into trouble.
I reread the planting directions and saw, in bold, this warning:
-Do not let any water sit in the hollow tuber or it may rot.
What!
Well, I'll fix that!



Ummm, in trying to drain the excess water from the pot, an unfortunate thing occurred.
The tuber fell out!



No problem.
I can put it back.
Hang on. . .



There!
I mixed a little dry soil with the incredibly wet soil.
That should do it!
Now for a quick double check on the proper way to start these guys.
I hop over to Doug green's site. http://www.douggreensgarden.com/
What!
Only water with warm water or the tuber may rot!
Oh for crying out loud!
It also wants bottom heat, so I put it on top of one of my fluorescent lights. (the old ones throw off a lot of heat.)
I have never had to worry about too much water before.
My poor plants generally worry about not having enough water.
So here we are. . .
Six weeks later. . .



Whew!
I can still call myself a gardener.

It is Spring!

The sun is shining, I'm in my t-shirt and jeans and. . .

I'm in the greenhouse!

Bliss.

Serendipity

Remember these?

You remember don't you?

Tamara (http://thegreenhousediaries.blogspot.com/) and the Big Guy were out for a seminar and left behind all the baby plants they used as props for their educational game.

I planted them up and babied them until late spring.

Two of these little guys along with some baby ivy were planted in a rusty metal planter, put under the apple tree and for the most part forgotten.

Oh, I watered them once in a while and picked the odd weed that sprouted, but mostly they went unnoticed.

Until a few weeks ago.

When I saw this. . .

Isn't it pretty?

And the orangey colour fits right in with the fall nesting theme.

I love unexpected gifts.

Disaster!

This is what happens when you don't keep track of the weather forecast closely.

I've been able to leave these pansies out for the last week as pansies are hardy to -5C.

I knew it was going to cool off and that snow was a possibility but. . .

It was not supposed to drop below -6C!

These pansies were in a nice sheltered spot and should have been fine.

Only I didn't listen to the weather before I went to bed.

It went down to -10C.

Sigh.

Today's the last day to enter the contest. Check out Tuesday's post for details.

I've got flowers!

Here's a peek at what is bloomimg under my lights. . .

Treasure!

One day late I'm afraid but I spent most of yesterday (when I wasn't working) sleeping.

I've been feeling under the weather lately and it finally caught up with me.


So. . .


Without further ado. . .


The treasure!

What is this you ask?

Good question!

My sister T and her husband B were in town for a business seminar.

They are in the greenhouse business and the seminar required a game.

T came up with a game that required the participants to identify the various plant cuttings.

As there were two teams, there were two identical batches of cuttings. Twenty in each.

Guess who got to take the cuttings home?

Yep. ME!

Whoo hoo!

Better than jewelery anytime!

They had to be planted fast though, as they had spent nearly two days in T's carry on bag.

They all seem to be okay so I'll keep you posted.

Here's what one of them looked like in the bag.

Can you guess what this is?

Here it is out of the bag.

Can anyone tell me now?

Did you say million bells?

I did.

I was wrong.

It is a potunia. Have you ever heard of it?

I hadn't. But now I have.

I love new plants!

Here's what my plant shelves looked like before I planted 40 cuttings into 4" pots.

Here's what they look like now!

As you can see I have moved all non essential plants to other locations.

Anyone with any suggestions as to were all the plants I haven't started yet might go?

I'm going to be hanging lights in my bedroom next!

Mistake number one

Well, as promised here is the story of my first mistake regarding my seedlings. ( And if past experience is any thing to go by, it is just the first of many!)


These are the seedlings in question.

As you can see I had planted these Datura in a smaller six pack. I planted in the smaller six pack for only one reason. . .

Pure laziness. The smaller pot was brand new and didn't need washing and sterilizing. The larger pot did.

So I choose the smaller one.

And this is the result of my laziness. . .




That's right, flowers! The very small plants have already started flowering. Why you ask?

This is why. The plant has already become a little root bound which is it's signal to flower! If I had transplanted it into a bigger pot earlier it would have just kept growing bigger. Now it's energy is going into the flower.

One of the plants is not as far along as the other so hopefully all is not lost with that one.

Of course the solution is to transplant them now.

Which I did.

But still.

The fact is , is that they won't get as big as they should have!

I hate that.

Time for a bigger pot. Notice how I went quite a bit bigger? This will not happen again! (well. . . yes it will. But I can hope!)

The trick here is to break the roots apart so that they will be forced to grow into the new surrounding soil. If you just leave them they way they are they'll keep circling around, which often causes it to dry out faster, and will it never get as big as it should.

Into the pot it goes.

Add your soil .

Press soil in firmly.

Add water and put back under the lights and that's it.

Really. . .

That's all there is to it!

What else could there be?

Oh all right! You remember the flower buds? Well. . . I have to take them off.

I know, I know, it will be painful. After all who wouldn't want to see the first flower of the season?

But you want the growth to go to the roots, so the plant will get bigger, rather than wasting energy on flowering.

And I'll do it.

But it's going to hurt. . .

Time to fertilize!

How exciting is this?

Take a look at how quickly my plants have grown. . .

These plants have already sent out their second set of leaves. (The rudbeckia has just the one large one to start)

I use 14-14-14 to fertilize my seedlings and I place one pellet in each corner of the plant cell.

Sunshine, warmer temperatures, and new green growth. . .

Spring is on it's way.