Gardening in January: Terrariums!!

It's the middle of winter and baby it's cold outside!

An African violet adds color- look Mom, no top!

Inside the greenhouse with the terrarium plants on display.

January 8th, Auraca - our local herb group - met at Michaleen's Florist and Garden Center for a talk on creating terrariums.

Barb, our Michaleen's hostess, showed our group what terrariums are, what is needed to create one and how to care for them. It was fascinating! And as an added bonus, we sat in a greenhouse in January! Plants were blooming all around us ~ an orange tree, scented geraniums, the smells ~ it was heaven!

Bathroom Martini Terrarium

Terrariums are no longer the science projects we created back in the 1960's and 1970's. Lucky for us, the definition seems to have morphed into a free-for-all involving small plants and glass containers.

Size? Whatever you want.
Tops? Optional.
Round? Sure but square, birdhouse shaped, and domed are also options.
Heck, you can even grow a bonsai in one!
Zombies, fairies, bridges, arbors, rocks: you can put whatever keepsakes you want into your mini-garden to create a theme.

Talk about liberating!!!

Here's the recipe:

• Glass container
• Decorative Gravel
• Moss
• Soil
• a selection of plants which can be pruned to stay small or grow slowly
• Fun little items to add character to your garden ~ cool rocks, tiny buildings, arbors, tiny people or animals

Geraniums at Michaleen's - Gorgeous!

Here's how:

• Put about 1" of gravel in the bottom of your glass container for drainage.
• Line the side of the container with a layer of moss, about 1" tall, give or take.
• Arrange your plant (s) and fun items in the center to be sure they fit.
• Trim back your plants as needed.
• Add some soil and plant your plants in the middle of the container.
• Top the soil with either decorative gravel or more moss ~ your choice.
• Lightly water and you are done. 

General rules:

• Use plants that are small in scale and grow slowly
• Don't over water your terrarium
• Don't let the plants touch the sides 
• Prune the plants regularly to keep them small 
• Select plants of similar light and water needs for your terrarium.  A cactus won't like living with an African violet!!

I never used this Pyrex for cooking, so what the heck!  Perfect on our dining room table

That's about it. Let your creativity go wild on these cold, gray winter days!

Michaleen's periodically holds classes on making terrariums.  It's just plain fun ~ especially in the dead of winter when we all need a shot of "PLANT" to feed our gardening needs.  

My daughter's garden bench terrarium with garnets collected in the Adirondacks

Aphids: the Bela Lugosi of the Garden

My first vampire experience was watching Bela Lugosi as Dracula.  I remember it clearly ~ the cape, the eyes, the fangs: a classic!   I must have seen the movie right about when I discovered what an aphid was.  I remember seeing hundreds of these little greenish bugs, lined up and down the plant stems in my mom's garden.  I swear they all had little capes, glowing eyes and the fangs.  They were clearly sucking the blood out of those poor plants!  If I put one on my neck, would it bite me, too?  What if one was already on my neck, sucking my blood?  Quick, better check my arms and legs -  MMMOMMMM!

That was when I was 25... actually about 10 and yes, I had quite an imagination.

Or did I?  Consider this:

Vampires: sometimes has wings, sometimes doesn't
Aphids: ditto
Vampires: sucks blood
Aphids: sucks (plant) blood
Vampires: injects toxins into host
Aphids: ditto
Vampires: leaves nasty looking puncture wounds
Aphids: ditto (named the ever so attractive "sooty mold")
Vampires: repelled by garlic
Aphids: well, not really...

To learn more about these B movie garden invaders and how to keep them from turning your garden into a Transylvanian movie set, click here.

Bela Lugosi as Dracula

Sprouting in My Kitchen

A recurring New Year's resolution of mine is to eat better.  Another is to garden more.  Humm, how to combine my itchy green thumb with eating better in the dead of winter?

Grow some edible sprouts.  Gardening and good nutrition, all in one!

Sprouts are super nutritious. They are packed with all sorts of yummy vitamins, minerals and even chocolate - okay, there is no chocolate in sprouts, but you get the idea.  I've been told there is a wide variety of sprouts available in terms of flavor and texture: surely there is a sprout or two I'd like??!!

I recorded my first sprouting adventure via smart phone and am sharing it below.  Enjoy!

Problem #1: where to get sprout-able seeds locally? You need to find seeds that are meant for human consumption -  seeds for planting could be treated with fungicides.
 Greenstar, thankfully has a shelf dedicated just to sprout-able seeds.  Cool! 

My homemade equipment: I cut a screen out of an actual screen and fit it under the cap of the jar.  Problem #2: the clover seeds on day 1 float right through the screen.  Solution: fine mesh strainer added to my equipment list.

The initial 12 hour soak.  Boy do the seeds look small! Mung beans on the left, red clover on the right.

Day one in my "drainer" - a glass loaf pan.  These are rinsed 4 to 5 times at least twice a day throughout the process.  Being right by my sink, it's easy to do.

Day two: the mung bean sprouts are going to town!

A close up of the red clover sprouts on day 3.  There are sprouts and seed hulls all jumbled together.

Mung Sprouts on day 4 -  Look at those roots.  Time to Eat!!

Mung Bean Sprouts, lightly blanched and tossed with a vinaigrette dressing - YUMMY!!  I found the blanching converts the starchy flavor of the raw sprout to a nice sweetly bland but nutty flavor. 

Red Clover on day 5.  I've rinsed off many hulls (they float to the top) and it looks like time to bag these up and start adding them to soups and salads. 

That was fun and tasty!  I'm crowning myself Jean-Jean-the-Sprouting-machine!!

To learn more about sprouting in your kitchen, a website I'd recommend is www.Sproutpeople.org . They have videos, fact sheets and gear, if you want to go into high tech sprouting.  Jars are not the only way to sprout: you can buy tiered plastic sprouters, special mesh bags, specialized glass jars ~ I just chose an easy, on-hand option that works for me.  Here's a video on sprouting in a mason jar by the Sprout People: http://youtu.be/SKmAZw8fe7U .  Remember I used a screen I cut to size and held in place with a canning ring.  There are videos on YouTube showing sprouters made from never used fly swatters: you cut the plastic swatter-part to fit in the top of a mason jar, under the canning ring.  Interesting..... Greenstar also stocks mason jar tops modified for sprouting.  You have a lot of choices for gear!

Please note:  I can't stress enough how important sanitary conditions are for home growing sprouts.  Keep it clean, rinse often and a lot, and use sterilized equipment.  Mold grows quickly under the conditions required to sprout.  A biggie is salmonella: you do not want to get salmonella.  Be careful, out there - rinse, rinse, rinse!

Enjoy and let us know if you have sprouted and what you think. :)

Are your holiday plants worth saving?

By Pat Curran
Your window sills may have several different holiday plants still in bloom, but they differ a lot in whether they are worth keeping after their bloom is over.  Poinsettias may look nice for several months, as the colorful parts are modified leaves, not flowers (the real flowers are the little yellow parts in the middle).  Pruning and repotting will produce a nice foliage plant later, but getting them to rebloom is very difficult.  I tried some years ago by putting them in an unused bedroom, where there wouldn't be any light to break the long night requirement to set flower buds.  But the bedroom was so cool that they didn't grow enough to produce new flower buds.  So unless you have an unused warm closet with a light setup and a timer, it's not worth the effort.

 

Christmas and Thanksgiving cacti are good rebloomers, and Kalanchoe is sometimes.  One year, I kept florist's cyclamen going and got it to rebloom at least once.  Azaleas and hydrangeas are better suited to greenhouse growing, and usually not winter hardy outdoors for most of us.  The same is probably true for most mums.

 Hydrangea                       Azalea

Primroses in bloom appear in January at Tops market.  I bought two last weekend.  If these are kept well-watered, they will produce new flower buds for months.  Then in late May, after the danger of frost is almost over (remember, although they are winter-hardy plants, they have been indoors and so are not acclimated to cool or cold weather), I plant them in a shady site outdoors, and most of them will persist for years.

January 2013- Growing Veggies in Winter

 What to do in the garden this month
by Jean Gerow

Ahh, the joys of gardening throughout the year!  It may be snowy and coldy outside, but there is plenty to do in your garden this month.

• Cut limbs off your Christmas tree and lay the limbs over your garden beds to protect and insulate the beds throughout the winter.

• Peruse your seed catalogues, making notes and lists of seeds you want to try the upcoming year. Place your order ASAP as some really fun varieties sell out quickly.

• Clean and organize your seed starting gear. Clean and sanitize trays and equipment

• Clean and sharpen your gardening tools - learn how at the Master Gardener tool sharpening workshop, Monday January 28 at 7:30 pm.

 Growing Winter Vegetables Indoors
by Chrys Gardener

Do you enjoy eating fresh salad greens year-round, but cringe at the high cost of buying local greens in winter? If you have a greenhouse or conservatory attached to your house, or even a big sunny windowsill, you can grow your own cut-and-come again salad leaves throughout the winter and early spring.

You can sow individual packets of leaves like arugula, mustard, bok choy, tatsoi, mizuna and lettuce, or you can start with a packet of pre-mixed salad seeds (there are some packets available now in the CCE Seed Exchange cabinet).

Germinate 20-30 seeds in a small square pot then transplant them into cell packs and grow on until they have several sets of leaves and a good root system groups. Tranplant 2-3 plants into wide, shallow pots like bulb pans shown here.

Harvest the outer leaves and new leaves will continue to develop from the center. You should get about 3-4 weeks picking before the plants get tired out, so do another sowing every 3-4 weeks for continuous harvest till spring.
 

I'm also doing an experiment in growing broad beans (fava beans) in a cool greenhouse
- I'll write about the results in a future blog!