Overwintering Brugmansia

Brugmansias make a wonderful, tropical addition to the garden during the summer! I love the delicate trumpet flowers, and some of them smell heavenly!!

Brugmansia

Brugmansias are not hardy here in zone4, so I have to overwinter them in the house. There are several ways to overwinter a brugmansia...

Houseplant

Brugmansia flowers

Brugmansias can be overwintered as a houseplant.

The plant needs a lot of light and should be kept in a sunny south facing window.

Supplemental lighting is a good idea too, especially if you live in a region with shortened daylight hours during the winter.

Without sufficient lighting, new growth on the plant will be weak.

After the plant is moved indoors, it will drop some of its leaves, this is normal.

You might get lucky and enjoy blooms during the winter, but it's difficult to mimic the conditions necessary for blooms indoors.

The first year I overwintered my brugmansias, this is the method I started with.

I had a terrible experience because my plants became infested with aphids and spider mites within days of bringing them inside. Which is why I tried the next option...

Dormancy

Brugmansia flower

After my brugmansias became infested with pests, I talked to a fellow plant person who overwinters several types of tropical plants.

She suggested to let the brugmansias go dormant for the winter... "no leaves, no bugs".

At that time, I didn't realize you could let brugmansias go dormant.

To encourage the plant to go dormant, put it in a cool, dark location and stop watering it.

After a few days, the plant will start to drop its leaves, eventually dropping all of them.

Leave the plant in a cool, dark location until spring. (Read Wake Up Sleepy Heads for tips on breaking dormancy).

Pruned Brugmansias

I water the plant about once a month to keep it from completely drying out, large plants won't need much water.

You don't want them to dry out completely, but the soil should remain on the dry side. Do not over water a dormant plant.

If the plant is too large for your space, there are a few things you can do.

The plant can be pruned back to a manageable size, and stored the same way.

Brugmansias can be pruned heavily - don't worry, they will grow back in the spring. Or...

Cuttings
Another way to overwinter brugmansia is to put the cuttings in water, where they will sprout roots.

Rooted brugmansia cuttings in water

After taking the cuttings, remove all the large leaves and soak the cuttings in water to drown any unwanted pests.

Place the cuttings in a bucket or vase filled with fresh water.

Once roots have developed, the cuttings could either be potted up, or you could leave them in water all winter.

If you keep the cuttings in water, be sure to check the water every few weeks or so to make sure it's not getting scummy or evaporating.

If the water starts to get cloudy or scummy, dump it out and rinse the container, then fill it with fresh water.

Keep the water level above the roots at all times, you don't want the roots to dry out.

Also keep an eye out for pests. If you spot any pests, you can simply soak the entire cutting in water again to drown them. This is much easier than fighting pests on a large plant.

Brugmansia flower

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Tip Rot

Cactus with tip rot

Shortly after bringing this cactus in for the winter, I noticed something looked very wrong.

The top appeared to be turning brown.

At first I thought it was just a reflection or shadow.

But upon closer inspection, my fear was confirmed...

Cactus with tip rot

this cactus has tip rot - and it's BAD.

This cactus has had tip rot in the past, and I should have paid closer attention to it!

No time for kicking myself, I had to take action immediately.

Once a plant has tip rot, all the rot must be cut off.

If it's not completely removed, the rot will continue to spread and eventually kill the plant.

And rot spreads very quickly.

Remove of tip rot in layers

Tip rot like this will probably need to be removed in sections.

Here you can see that the center of the healthy looking portion of the plant still has some rot.

So I continue to cut off layers of the cactus until I see the entire section of cactus is healthy, and there are no more signs of rot.

You can use a sharp knife or clippers to remove the rot.

I prefer to use a knife because clippers can crush the stem.

Removed second section of tip rot

It's extremely important that the knife or clippers are clean and sterile before cutting.

I also wash my knife with soap and water, and then dry it after each cut.

I don't know what caused this tip rot - but if it's a disease or fungus, I don't want to help it spread.

Cleaning the knife or clippers between each cut will help with prevention.

Unfortunately, this cactus was pretty far gone by the time I noticed the rot. I had to cut off over half of the cactus to remove all the rot.

Tip rot removed

As difficult as it was for me to remove a large section of this cactus, I know my plant would be dead in a matter of weeks if I left behind any rot.

The cactus should callus over in a few days, and eventually send out new growth near the cut.

I will keep a close eye on this guy for the next few days to make sure it caluses over and doesn't continue to rot.

If I spot more rot, I'll cut another small section off the cactus.

You can see the place where the new growth started from the spot where I cut the rot off last time.

Hopefully that will happen again. Heck, I think it adds character to the plant (trying to find the silver lining here).

Cacti aren't the only plants that get tip rot. I've had to remove tip rot from my plumeria and angel wing begonia in the past too.

If you notice the tip of any plant is turning black or brown, and/or it's mushy... it's probably tip rot.

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Weekly Flower Arrangement

It's mid-October and we still haven't had our first killing freeze, so many of my flowers are still going. This weeks arrangement looks very similar to last weeks. I love the colors and the flowers, so I don't mind having two in a row that are similar.

I meant to include petunias in this arrangement but forgot. But I was able to include a lovely blue Delphinium that decided to bloom in October! I think it must be confused with this weather we've been having and it thinks it's spring again (I wish!!).

This weeks flower arrangement

Here's what's included in this arrangement...

• Marigolds (orange and yellow flowers throughout)
• Dahlias (large fuchsia flowers) 
• Zinnia 'polar bear' (large white flower top/center)
• Zinnias (large red flowers and small pink flower)
• Delphinium (bright blue flower spike at top)

I hope you enjoy seeing my weekly flower arrangements. Please join in and share a link to pictures of your flower arrangements and/or current blooms! I love seeing other peoples flowers! You can also share a link or photo on my Facebook page.


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October What's Bloomin'

The flowers have been going strong in my gardens over the past month. But that's quickly changing now that we're getting into mid-October. Many of my indoor plants have been blooming too, so I get to share those with you.

Here are some of my favorites that have bloomed recently...

Starfish plant (aka carrion plant)

Epiphyllum cactus

Gaillardia Goblin

Variegated obedient plant

Gladiola

Castor bean with dahlias

Hibiscus (late bloomer)

Rudbeckia

Each week during the summer, I create a new flower arrangement with whatever is blooming in my garden at the time. Check out some of my latest flower arrangements...

Flower Arrangement from September 27th
Arrangement from October 5th
Flower Arrangement from October 12th

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Making Use of Small Harvests of Cucumbers

The cucumber harvest is dwindling, but I've still been harvesting a few here and there. I usually can pickles with my large cucumber harvests. But the last few harvests have been too small to can pickles, and too large to eat fast enough. So I've had to find other ways to use them up.

Small cucumber harvest

I searched the internet and came up with a few ideas of what to do with small cucumber harvests. Here are a few things I've tried, with yummy results...

Refrigerator Pickles

There are tons of recipes out there for refrigerator pickles. I decided to improvise and combine a few of the ingredients that sounded the best, and items I had on hand to make these.

Refrigerator pickles

The effort to make refrigerator pickles is about the same as making pickles for canning, but you don't have the added work of sterilizing everything and heating the jars and brine.

Plus, since I had a smaller number of cucumbers than I do when I'm canning pickles, making these refrigerator pickles was much faster.

Refrigerator pickles in jars

The added bonus to making these pickles is that I was able to use the dill that I planted in my second crop earlier this season, it was the perfect amount!

Cool Cucumber Salsa

I found a few recipes on the internet for cucumber salsa. They were all pretty similar, so I used the ingredients I had on hand to make my own version of cucumber salsa.

This is a great way to use up small harvests of tomatoes, and peppers too. It's much milder than a traditional salsa, although you can still spice it up with hot peppers.

Cool Cucumber Salsa

Another added bonus, I was able to use the cilantro that I planted in my second crop earlier this season.

Asian Cucumber Salad

Finally, I wanted to try making a light cucumber salad. Finding a recipe that appealed to me was difficult. Many of the recipes I found were very similar to the refrigerator pickles or the salsa. I wanted something different. I eventually stumbled upon some recipes for Asian cucumber salad and decided to try making something like that. 

Asian Cucumber Salad

It turned out great, and this salad stays fresh in the refrigerator for a few days.

I also found recipes for various vegetable dips and cracker spreads that sounded great. I will keep these in mind for next year.

What do you make with your small cucumber harvests?

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This Weeks Flower Arrangement

I'm thankful to still have flowers in my gardens this late in the season... but I've been getting slower and slower to post the pictures of my weekly arrangements. The weeks have been so busy lately and time keeps getting away from me.

Here is a picture of this weeks flower arrangement (I had to wrestle some of these away from the bumble bees)...

Weekly flower arrangement

This arrangement contains...

• Marigolds (orange and yellow flowers throughout)
• Petunias (delicate white flowers around bottom and center)
• Dahlias (large fuchsia flowers) 
• Zinnia 'polar bear' (large white flowers around top)
• Purple sweet potato vine foliage (scatter around and between flowers)
• Lungwort foliage (polka dot foliage and silver foliage around bottom)

What about you, did you create a flower arrangement this week? I would love to see pictures. Please join in and share a link to pictures of your flower arrangements and/or current blooms! I love seeing other peoples flowers! You can also share a photo on my Facebook page.


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Canning Whole Tomatoes

One of the things I wanted to try this year was canning tomatoes. A few weeks ago, I tried canning tomato sauce for the first time.... and I found out the hard way how much work that is, whew!

When I was done, I was disappointed with the results so I did some research about canning tomatoes. I found a wonderful step-by-step blog post for Canning Whole Peeled Tomatoes on a blog called Food in Jars. After reading this post, it seemed like canning tomatoes would be much, much easier.

I followed the steps in this blog post almost exactly, the only thing I did different was to use my pressure canner to process the jars rather than boiling water. It sped up the processing time significantly.

25 lbs of tomatoes waiting to be canned

Ok, canning whole tomatoes is 100 times easier than canning tomato sauce! And the results are much more satisfying. I used about 25 lbs of tomatoes, and ended up with 9 quart jars of tomatoes. When I canned tomato sauce, I started with about the same amount of tomatoes, and ended up with only 4 quarts and 1 pint of sauce.

Blanching tomatoes

But there were still a lot of steps involved with canning whole tomatoes. (washing, coring, blanching, cooling, peeling. squishing, heating jars, boiling water in canner...etc) At first it was very chaotic, and I was rushing around trying to get all the steps timed out right.

Cooling and peeling skins off tomatoes

When I canned more the next day, I found it much easier to have all the tomatoes cored and ready to go before starting to blanch, cool and skin them. I also decided it would have been much easier if I had 4 arms! But once I had more of a routine down, it went much smoother.

9 quart jars of tomatoes!! Woohoo!

In the future, I think I will skip tomato sauce and can my tomatoes this way from now on.

By the way, can I just say I love my pressure canner. So far, I've gotten a ton of use out of it and it's awesome! I'm very glad I splurged and bought one for myself this year.

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Latest Harvests

As predicted in my last harvest post, it's been a busy couple of weeks around here. We ended up harvesting everything that was ready last week because they were predicting a frost. Now I've been busy preserving the harvests. Whew, it's a bit overwhelming.

Thankfully, Mother Nature has decided to try to make up for the terrible weather we had this spring by giving us a few extra weeks to enjoy the fruits of our labor. 

The weather has been perfect lately and I'm harvesting daily. I still have some tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash and all the cold weather stuff growing in the gardens.

Anyway, here some of what I've been harvesting over the past few weeks...

Sweet and Hot Peppers

Banana peppers

Basil

Red potatoes

Yellow potatoes

Carrots

Bucket o' bell peppers

Purple Kohlrabi

Various types of squash

How about you, are you still harvesting?

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Weekly Flower Arrangement

If you would have asked me a month ago, I would have guessed I'd be done with my weekly flower arrangements by now. We have been lucky to have a warmer than normal fall so far, and it's been awesome!! We've had two frosts, but most of the annuals are still going strong.

This week I decided to do zinnias again. They are one of my favorite flowers and I think this will be my last arrangement of the season to dedicate to them. I put them into a large bowl this week, I like the way they fill it in. (A few of these flowers have tip damage from our last frost).

Zinnia bowl flower arrangement

If you like to make flower arrangements too, please join in and share a link to pictures of your flower arrangements and/or current blooms! I love seeing other peoples flowers! You can also share a photo on my Facebook page.

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Making Pesto

Every year I plant a bunch of basil in my garden. I love fresh basil, it's such a wonderful treat during the summer.  Last year, I decided I wanted to try to preserve my basil so I could enjoy it all winter too.

Basil in the garden

After researching different ways to preserve it, I decided on making pesto.

It was a great success, so I'm doing the same thing this year.

Making pesto is easy... but harvesting and cleaning all the basil leaves is not.

It's very time consuming and tedious (but in my opinion totally worth it).


To harvest the basil, I cut the basil stems off at the base and put them into a bucket of water right away. They start to droop pretty quickly after being harvested if not put into water.

Harvesting basil

Then I strip off all the leaves, discarding any that are yellow or brown. As I pull them off, I drop the healthy leaves into another bucket of water.

Lemon basil leaves in lettuce spinner

I soak the basil leaves for a few minutes to kill any bugs that might be on them.

(Note: the leaves may start to turn brown if left soaking in the water for an extended period.)

Then I rinse the leaves several times, and spin dry them in my lettuce spinner.

Now that the leaves are dry, I drop them into my food processor with some olive oil and puree them, adding more leaves as the basil starts to turn into pesto.

Making pesto in food processor

If you've ever made pesto, you know it takes a lot of basil leaves to make a decent amount of pesto. The basil I harvested (in the pictures above) yielded just under two cups of pesto.

It might not seem like much, but pesto is big on flavor. You really don't need much pesto each time you use it. This amount of pesto will last me through the winter.

Dividing and freezing pesto

Pesto can be frozen and used any time.

I like to store mine in small amounts so it's easy to grab and use it when I need it.

I wrap about a tablespoon of basil in a square of plastic wrap, and then put all the bundles into a freezer bag.

It tastes just as good after being frozen for several months as it does when you first make it.



There are tons of recipes out there for making pesto so you can get pretty creative.