You have to love amaryllis. Those huge, brilliantly colored flowers are amazing. And the fact that this is the time of year when you most often see them in homes and shops when it’s so cold and bleak looking outside makes them all the more spectacular. MrsGF got me this one one for Christmas and it’s just come into full flower and it is spectacular. And they aren’t expensive, either. I saw them at Walmart selling for about $7.
A lot of people throw them away when they’re done blooming because they’re usually fairly inexpensive to buy and people think they’re hard to get to bloom again, but they aren’t difficult to get to flower again. It does take a bit of work but it isn’t hard to do. So if someone gave you one of these or you bought one yourself, here’s how to care for it so it will bloom again next year.
Once the flowers have wilted, cut the flowers from the flower stalk. When the flower stalk wilts, cut it off at the top of the bulb but leave the leaves alone.
The leaves will continue to be green and growing for about another six months. Then they will begin to yellow and die back naturally, usually in the fall of the year. When this happens, cut the leaves off about 2 inches above the top of the bulb. Remove the bulb from the potting soil.
Clean loose dirt from the bulb, but be careful not to scar or scratch the bulb itself if possible. It now needs to be kept in a cool, dark place. Like a lot of bulbs, it needs to go through a lengthy dormant period before it will regrow. Don’t wrap it in plastic or put it in something like a ziplock bag or a sealed plastic container or trapped moisture could cause it to mold. You can wrap it loosely in something like parchment paper or newspaper. The ideal temperature for storing the bulbs is around 40 – 50 degrees (F), so if you have an older house with a cool basement like we do, that’s a good place to put it. I’ve heard of people keeping them in the vegetable crisper in their refrigerators with good results as well.
Oh, I should add that you should never store the bulbs near apples. I’ve been told that apples give off a gas that can sterilize the bulbs.
The bulb needs to be kept in in storage for at least 6 weeks. You can keep them like this for longer. When you take the bulb out of storage depends on when you want it to flower. You want to plant it about 8 weeks before you want it to flower.
When you’re ready to plant it, get out a pot at least two or three inches larger in diameter than the bulb, and several inches taller. Use a good quality potting compost soil mix. You can make your own but the commercial versions work quite well and have the advantage of being pre-sterilized and have nutrients added so you may not have to fertilize. Put an inch or two of soil in the bottom of the pot. Exactly how much depends on the height of your pot. You want the neck of the bulb to be just above the level of the soil. Push the soil down around the bulb just tightly enough so there aren’t any air pockets, but not so tightly that the soil can’t absorb water.
Put the bulb in a window where it will get direct sunlight. Mine is sitting in front of a south facing window. Ideally it should be a fairly warm location. They like temperatures around 65 – 75 degrees, but will still grow fairly well if it’s a bit cooler than that.
Water lightly until the leaves begin to form. Once the flower stalk begins to emerge, increase the amount of water a bit. Some growers will tell you to fertilize as well, but I’ve never done that. If you use a fresh, commercial potting compost mix when you plant it, it should have enough nutrients. But if it looks like it’s not growing as quickly as you think it should, you can add a bit of something like Miracle Grow to the water once a week or so.
The bulb should start to flower about eight or nine weeks after planting. Exactly when depends on temperature, sunlight, etc.
So if someone gave you one of these or you bought one and the flowers are beginning to wilt, yes, you can keep them and get them to flower again next year with a little patience and very little work.
Okay, so it’s the middle of January and it’s 12 degrees out so it isn’t really time to go out gardening, but this time of year I start to get that ache that every gardener gets in the middle of winter, that need to go grub around in the dirt and mess around with plants. The handful of house plants we have is better than nothing, but it just isn’t the same.
early to start planning, making lists of things that need to be done, and beginning to get things you may need when the weather finally does cooperate.
I was supposed to be tearing down all my radio equipment so I can move the new desk into the office. I should wash the car and get that ready for long term storage. I should get the snowblower out and check that over and… Well, hell, look at that photo up there. If your Saturday looked like that, would you hang around the house and do chores inside on what is probably going to be the last nice day of the year? So a lot of the chores got pushed aside to take advantage of the amazing weather because according to the predictions for this coming week, the weather is supposed to be pretty much bleh.
And there is still even a bit of color left out there if you go hunting for it. If you watch carefully there are still some plants that haven’t realized that it’s the end of the growing season and you’ll see a spark of yellow or purple or red peeking out through the grasses that are slowly starting to dry and turn brown.
Let’s see, what else? Not much, really. MrsGF thought I might hit 1,000 miles before the end of the biking season, but I’m going to be short of that. With the weather getting colder getting out on the bike is more irritating than enjoyable. I did hit 752 miles yesterday, and I’ll probably get over 800 yet this season before the weather shuts me down. But I doubt if I’ll get much more than that. That’s fine. I had no specific goals in mind.
I really do like autumn, but even I have to admit it gets a bit dull around this time of year, visually speaking. The rich greens, the brilliant flowers, the bright sun of summer is rapidly fading into the dull browns and dreary cloudy skies of fall.
I am fortunately not one of those people who suffers from Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD) but I know quite a few who are, and it’s easy to tell who they are this time of year. They tend to start to get grumpier and more irritable as the days become shorter. But even so I still find myself digging through my photos and lingering on things like bright, sunny scenes and and brilliantly colored flowers. Especially on days like today when it’s 7:30 AM and it looks like it’s going to be another one of those dull, cloudy days with rain. Ick…
conditions plus the very damp weather we had this season kept them from producing as well as they could have. We’ve been eating squash from there for a few weeks now. Very nice stuff and very tasty. But the squash themselves were small, and then because of the damp conditions and shaded location they started to get what MrsGF thinks is powdery mildew, which together prevented them from doing as good as they should have.
The peppers — holy cow have they taken off! They struggled all summer long, those poor plants, and that was largely our fault because we crowded them too much. I did some drastic thinning, taking out more than half the plants, and almost immediately the remaining ones responded with ridiculous amounts of fruit.
Colder weather and rain have slowed things down as far as biking is concerned. I manage to get out most days still, but I know the time is coming when the bike is going to have to hang up in the garage and it’ll be back to the treadmill (ick). Still, when the weather does cooperate, it is absolutely beautiful out there in the countryside.
Gads, after writing all that guff switching to this is going to be a jolt. Going from the beauty of nature to, well, to this… Yet another abandoned, collapsed barn. This one is just outside of town and it caved in about a month ago, and I decided to take a picture of it when I was out on the bike the other day.
The city of Manitowoc, in its never ending quest to try to get someone, anyone, to come to town and spend some money, is putting on a 
etc., and spreading weed seeds all over your fields. The problem is that a lot of weeds are coming ripe at around the same time as your crop. So when you combine your crop, you’re also combining the weeds and blowing the weed seeds out the back of the combine and scattering them all over the field. A lot of people have worked for a very long time on this problem, with various attempts at a solution.
So we’re going to try growing them from seed ourselves. Once the seed pods started to dry on the plants, we snipped them off and kept them in a dry place until the pods did this:
Once the pods split open like that after they’ve dried, it’s simple to get the actual seeds out. Just use a toothpick or similar pointed object to slip the seeds out of the dried pod into a container.
Still, it gives me something to do with all those dopey little empty pimento jars we have sitting around for some reason. Where do those even come from, anyway? I don’t remember ever even buying pimentos. I think people are breaking into the house and leaving empty jars here.
