Tag: plant

Peppers

May 20, 2020

Peppers

Have you ever seen a pepper seed? If you’ve had crushed red peppers shaken on your Italian food, you’ve seen the small whitish yellow seeds; the crunchy non-red parts of the seasoning.

They are very small – not carrot seed small, but almost four times smaller than a squash seed.

We do have little tunnel diggers in our yard so we plant each seed separately in its very own little cup. These sprout into two tiny leaves holding the seed coat above them like a rocket punching through the atmosphere. Then we have sprouts! (the picture below show a mix of tomato and pepper sprouts)

We planted our second wave of pepper sprouts into a close bed of 4′ by 4′ with just enough spacing between each one for the plants to grow. They have a few small branches at this point as the picture below was taken about three weeks after transplant and about five weeks from sprouting.

Here they are seen with several little peppers hanging off of their branches. Can you spot them?

We’ve had one supper of stuffed peppers over rice, I harvest one to chop up and toss in my eggs or leftover rice for second breakfast, we even used some to make a salsa along with our fresh tomatoes!

I’m loving the peppers from our garden! (And both Lucas and Thea eat them right off the plant – at least Lucas will wait until they are big!)

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Orchid Care

February 11, 2020

Orchid Care

I have a passion for growing things (secretly, I may be a hobbit) and one of my favorite flowers is the Orchid. I’ve never been able to grow them though. Every time Louis brought me one, it died.

My best successes were roses – my absolute favorite flower – I learned from Grandma Jeanette, Joanne, Mrs. Joy, and many other gardening ladies I knew as a youth, how to make cuttings root, how to feed them with a specific mixture of leaves and compost, what to add, what not to do with them, how to entice blooms, how and where to cut the stems for cuttings for vases and long life or for propagation.

I had quite a rose bush collection before we lost our house. One bush of white roses from a bouquet. Two bushes off of my Kimberlina that got water-logged. Two Joseph’s Coats, one from my Mom & Daddy the birthday I got my house and one rooted from that bush. One Mister Lincoln from Mom and two grown from cuttings. A rose bush each from two bouquets Louis gave me. A rose bush from each of three bouquets from sisters. And a couple I bought clearance from Sams Club. I wish I had pictures of these things, but back then I wasn’t really much into pictures and figured I’d have those roses forever.

I loved, loved, loved orchids though.

It made me so sad that I couldn’t make them grow.

I borrowed books from the library, asked people, spoke to the sellers, but all the directions were so different and orchids were so expensive that I couldn’t just trial and error (although that is what happened about six poor plants).

Then the day I came back to work after my baby sister died, there was a beautiful white orchid on my desk. It made me cry because it was so pure and beautiful, like I remembered Mary – the baby who I was to protect.

My goal was to keep this orchid alive.

I had a new research portal this time… youtube! Perfection! Multiple people with videos showing time lapses, showing the results of various problems, and explaining the actual wild life of the orchid.

So:

  1. Dark green leaves = not enough light
  2. Red-tinged leaves = too much light
  3. In-bloom, move out of direct sun: to start blooming, put plant in direct sunlight.
  4. Water only once a week, take out, cover in water, soaking roots or spraying down roots to remove accumulated salts (the plants remove salts through their roots and it will accumulate and burn the plant unless flushed off!)
  5. Cut stems after bloom leaving two nodes & plant will flower again after 8 – 12 weeks.

I have discovered that if they are not bare root, you have to drain them DRY before putting them back in the pot after watering. This plant loves humidity but hates water logging. They grow bare-root in humid tropical climates where the heat dries them out in between soaking rains or mists.

As for my goal: So far, it’s been 6 months and it’s still thriving!

So, if you are looking to grow orchids, hopefully this helps you out!

Thank you for reading,

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Pineapple

May 2, 2018

Pineapple

One of our favorite fruits is the pineapple.

20180502_1246211925529018.jpg

The best of the best is fresh cut.  (We will get them straight off our bushes someday!)

Pineapple is great with pork, in oriental dishes, on pizza, in a cake, in muffins, or just plain and juicy sweet.

Up until a few months ago, I’d never cut a fresh pineapple!  It’s really easy if your kids are like mine and want to eat as close to the rind as possible.  My mom cuts the rind off and then dices the meat for a no-mess-later snack.

You cut off the top.  (Be sure to leave a little meat so you can plant the top in a sunny spot and a year later you’ll have more pineapples!)

You cut off the base.  (My kids call it the butt because the pineapple sits on it.)

Now stand the pineapple up and slice through it from top to bottom in two or three cuts.  I always use three because I like narrower bites for small-child mouths to make less of a mess.  Lay these four or six strips flat and slice into wedges.  They will look like pizza slices.  The yellow pineapple meat is pretending to be the cheese and the rind is being the crust.

20180502_124638.jpg

And voila!  Easy treat to grab and eat!  Our chickens love pineapple rinds.  Prim always thinks she wants them when we are cutting, but that’s just because we have the cutting board out and she thinks she’s a human.

20180502_124917.jpg

Pineapple is loaded with vitamins and minerals needed for healthy bodies.  It has an enzyme called bromelain that is anti-inflammatory and helps sooth coughing too.  For the calories (82 per cup), pineapple is considered nutrient dense and low sugar.  One cup of fresh pineapple has about 180mg potassium, 2g dietary fiber, 0.6g protein, 0.7% Vitamin A, 40% Vitamin C, 6.7% Vitamin B6, as well as copper, iron, folate, magnesium, thiamin, niacin, and 130% daily value of manganese!  (Among others, check it out!)

So, for a healthy, easy snack that tastes great, try some fresh pineapple!  (Just watch out for the “burn” you can get on your lips after a few slices.)

Fun facts:

Did you know that adding a little salt to pineapple makes it taste sweeter?  Just not too much!

The pineapple is technically a berry!  It is formed by several flowers fruiting together at the core (the hard central “Stem” through the middle of the pineapple) and fusing together into the soft, yellow meat of a single fruit per stalk.

The core and rind are edible!  The core can be too tough to eat in an unripe pineapple.  The rind is traditionally used to make a fermented drink!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

Follow me!

Get my latest posts delivered to your email: