A lot of work has been going on inside my main greenhouse - cleaning, organizing, and giving many of my potted plants some much needed attention.
Last week, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, repotted a variety of specimens including the very interesting and popular Sansevieria. Sansevieria is a genus of about 70-species of flowering plants, native to Africa, Madagascar and southern Asia. You may know it as one of its common names such as mother-in-law's tongue, devil's tongue, jinn's tongue, bow string hemp, snake plant, and snake tongue.
Enjoy these photos.
While working in my main greenhouse I noticed these beautiful sansevieria plants needed repotting. Ryan removed them from their pots and prepared all the necessary supplies.
Certain cultivars of sansevieria have striped, elongated, smooth, greenish-gray leaves like these. Look closely – they are accented with lighter green bars going horizontally across each leaf.
Ryan begins by slicing about an inch off the bottom. This will help to stimulate new root growth after it is repotted.
This plant outgrew its pot, so Ryan uses a knife to divide the plant into sections. Sansevieria plants are rapid growers and may need repotting or dividing annually. A well-grown sansevieria can split a pot with its mass of underground shoots.
It is not difficult to divide sansevieria. Dividing is a good option for large plants. It also provides an opportunity to provide new soil for the main plant if its root bound.
These pots will fit the newly divided sansevieria sections nicely. Clay pots provide a healthy environment for plants because of their porosity, which allows air and moisture to reach the roots and encourage growth.
As always, a shard or stone is placed at the bottom of the clay pot to cover the drainage hole to prevent soil from falling out.
It’s important to use the proper soil mix. The right soil mix will help to promote faster root growth.
Next, Ryan adds a generous scoop of the slow-release fertilizer, Osmocote. The beige shell on the prills coats a core of nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
Mirale-Gro Osmocote Plus feeds container plants for a good six months with beneficial micronutrients.
Ryan divides another large sansevieria. He basically creates divisions with at least a handful of strong leaves and their roots in each section.
Always be sure to use sharp instruments to keep cuts clean and to prevent root damage.
The leaves do not mind being crowded. This pot will do nicely for the sansevieria.
Ryan places the sansevieria firmly in the pot. Do you know… these plants absorb toxins, such as nitrogen oxides – they work great for improving indoor air quality? In fact, it is one of the best air purifying plants to keep.
Ryan trims the plant of any old, dead or shriveled leaves, so there is ample room for all the new growth.
Ryan backfills and tamps the soil down around the plant to prevent any air holes. Although they are very forgiving, sansevieria plants prefer indirect but steady light with some direct sun. They can adapt to full sun conditions, and will also survive quite dim situations.
This plant prefers warm conditions and should not be exposed to temperatures below 50-degrees Fahrenheit. It does not take long to pot up several sansevierias.
I wanted them in the glass hallway connecting the greenhouse and head house, so they can be closely monitored. Ryan positions them with their best sides facing inward.
Plants can be watered about once every two to six weeks, depending on the temperature, light levels, and humidity.
I think these sansevieria plants will do so nicely here where they can be monitored, seen, and enjoyed.
Here at my farm, we're picking lots of wonderful and nutritious vegetables from the garden.
Yesterday, my housekeepers Enma Sandoval and Elvira Rojas harvested a bounty of beautiful vegetables - beans, artichokes, peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, radishes, and more. Despite some very uncomfortable summer weather the last couple of weeks, the vegetables are thriving.
Enjoy these photos.
I am so pleased and so proud of my new vegetable garden. It’s been so productive and all the vegetables look fantastic. It’s important to check it every day – there’s always something ready to pick. On the left are the growing vines of my pumpkins.
I grow many peppers to share with family and friends. If you grow a variety of peppers, be careful when picking them – always keep the hot ones separated from the sweet ones, so there is no surprise in the kitchen.
These are birds beak peppers – they need a little more time. Birds beak peppers, also known as Pimenta Biquinho, are small, round peppers with a tapered tip that resembles a bird’s beak. They originated in Brazil and are known for their tangy, fruity flavor and mild heat level. Birds beak peppers can be eaten raw or used as a garnish – I like to pickle them.
I have a large bed of eggplants and there are so many ready to pick. Eggplants are ready to harvest when they are firm, glossy, and shiny.
It is good to pick eggplants when they are young and tender. Try to pick a little early, which will encourage the plant to grow more, and will help to extend the growing season.
Sweet bell peppers are popular in the garden – all grassy in flavor and crunchy in texture. I love making stuffed peppers – so easy and so delicious.
Look at the many tomatoes developing on the vines. So many are bright red and ready to pick. Most tomato plant varieties need between 50 and 90 days to mature. Planting can also be staggered to produce early, mid and late season tomato harvests.
As the tomatoes are harvested, I like to place them on baking sheets to keep them from getting bruised.
Many of the bigger tomatoes are ready too! I grow about 120 tomato plants every year – different varieties for different cooking and eating qualities, as well as early and midseason varieties to ensure a good supply from midsummer to fall.
These will ripen in the coming weeks. Tomatoes are heat loving plants, so all the hot weather we’ve had has really helped our crops – the tomato vines are laden with fruit.
Bigger tomatoes should be placed stem side down, which help them last longer, prevent moisture loss, and make them juicier.
This entire tray of artichokes was harvested in just a few minutes. Artichoke harvest starts in late July or early August and continues well until frost. The globe artichoke, Cynara scolymus, is actually a flower bud, which is eaten when tender.
There are also a lot of beans. Beans grow best in full sun and moist soil. Bush beans are second only to tomatoes as the most popular vegetables in home gardens. Bush beans are eaten when the seeds are small. They are also called string beans because of a fibrous string running the length of the pod.
They also come in yellow. Bush beans grow on shrubby plants and are very prolific producers. They can continually produce throughout the season with the proper care. In general, bush beans should be ready in 50 to 55 days.
Everything is collected in buckets, trays, and large plastic bags. Look at the bounty – and there’s still more to harvest.
The beetroot is the taproot of the beet plant, and is often called the table beet, garden beet, red or golden beet or simply… beet. Beets are highly nutritious and very good for maintaining strong cardiovascular health. It’s low in calories, contains zero cholesterol, and is rich in folates, vitamin-A, B-complex, and antioxidants.
Many radishes are also ready. The radish is an edible root vegetable of the Brassicaceae family. Radishes are grown and consumed throughout the world, and mostly eaten raw as a crunchy salad vegetable. Have you ever tried radish and butter with pinch of flaky salt? It is a popular French low-carb snack, and it’s delicious.
Radishes come in many varieties – both long and round. The flavor can range from very mild to very spicy, depending on the kind.
Radishes are easy to pick – one can just pull the entire plant straight up from the soil.
Celery takes a while to mature – 130 to 140 days.
This is celeriac, also known as celery root. Celery and celeriac are basically the same plant, Apium graveolens, with celeriac being a variety cultivated for its root rather than for its stalks. While they have similar flavors, celeriac and celery have different textures and shapes.
There is so much growing in the garden – we will be harvesting wonderful vegetables every week for the rest of the season.
All the freshly picked vegetables are loaded up and brought to my flower room, where they can be washed if needed, then bagged and stored in the refrigerator. I am looking forward to eating all the fruits of my labor.
It's dahlia season and here at my Bedford, New York farm we have lots of gorgeous, bright, and colorful dahlias blooming in my garden.
Dahlia is a genus of tuberous plants that are members of the Asteraceae family and are related to the sunflower, daisy, chrysanthemum, and zinnia. They grow from small tubers planted in the spring. And from summer until the first autumn frost, these flowers give off a stunning show with blooms ranging from small to giant dinner-plate size.
Enjoy these photos.
Dahlias grow more blooms when they get at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight per day. My dahlia garden gets great sun behind my vegetable greenhouse. And because this spot is behind this large structure, it is also protected from strong winds.
Currently, there are about 42 species of dahlia, with hybrids commonly grown as garden plants. A member of the Asteraceae family of dicotyledonous plants, some of its relatives include the sunflower, daisy, chrysanthemum, and zinnia.
Dahlias are named after 18th-century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. He actually categorized dahlias as a vegetable because of their edible tubers. The tubers are said to taste like a mix between potatoes and radishes.
Dahlias were first recorded by Westerners in 1615, and were then called by their original Mexican name, acoctli. The first garden dahlias reached the United States in the early 1830s. Today, dahlias are grown all over the world.
The genus Dahlia is native to the high plains of Mexico. Some species can be found in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica as well as parts of South America where it was introduced.
The array of flower colors, sizes, and shapes is astounding. Dahlias come in shades of pink, red, yellow, orange, white, shades of purple, and various combinations of these colors – every color but true blue.
Do you know… in the 19th century, a London newspaper offered a pound, or a little more than a dollar, to the first breeder to create a blue dahlia? Interestingly, the reward was never claimed, but there have been many attempts that are near-blue. Like many flower varieties, there is also no pure black variety—only dark red and dark purple.
This one is bright creamy white with a very light yellow center.
Dahlias can also vary in height, leaf color, form, and shape. This is because dahlias are octoploids, meaning they have eight sets of homologous chromosomes, whereas most plants have only two.
Dahlia plant leaves grow opposite each other and are simple to pinnately compound with segments that are ovate to oblong to lanceolate in shape. The leaf margins may be lobed or dentate. Leaves may be green, reddish-purple, or purple-black depending on the variety.
The majority of dahlia species do not produce scented flowers or cultivars, but they are brightly colored to attract pollinating insects.
Dahlias are classified according to flower shape and petal arrangement.
They range from a charming single, daisy-like flower to the popular double varieties which can be two-inch-pompons to 12-inch dinner plate size.
They are divided into 10 groups: single, anemone, collarette, waterlily, decorative, fall, pompon, cactus, semi-cactus, and miscellaneous.
Pompon dahlias yield masses of intricate, fully double blooms measuring up to two-and-a-half inches across.
This cactus variety is called ‘Park Princess’ with tightly rolled rich, vibrant pink petals. It is a prolific re-bloomer and an excellent cut flower.
As they grow it’s important to provide tall dahlia stems with good support to help the plants weather any storms and strong winds. Phurba puts in green painted wooden stakes throughout the bed.
Phurba ties one end of the twine to a stake about two feet off the ground and then stretches it to the next stake a few feet away on one side creating triangular quadrants. He does the same for a second row a little higher allowing the stems to sit in between the jute ties.
Here is an elegant dahlia which produces large blossoms with fully double, slender, deep pink petals with creamy throats that produce a frilled effect-hence the name Fimbriata meaning frilly.
Experiment with the blooms – dahlias look great arranged in different colors or as a bunch of the same variety. Harvesting flowers is good for the plants and encourages them to continue flowering month after month.
And when arranging, always strip off all the leaves that would be below the water line in the vase. This is true for all flower arrangements, not just dahlias. When leaves stay underwater, they decay and release bacteria that shorten the vase life of the flowers. And change the water daily so they look fresh and last longer. With good sunlight, proper watering, and a little bit of luck, we’ll have gorgeous, colorful dahlias growing all the way until Halloween.
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