My Winter Basement Garden

Flame will be next , and then Maya..

Thanks Debra - what a treat. :)

here we are at the end of February.. 2012.. starting off with Charlies old room, now the "Brug" room

begonia collection and some other things

Watch your head, man eating vines everywhere, while the sleeping EE's guard them

hints of spring and waking things thru out the Gardens, and a few experiments too..firespike from Rita, morning glory i carnea fromLazlo, a P gigantum philo..

THANK YOU DEBRA! :)

you're my idol.

xox

Debra - I keep reading about all the stuff you have growing from seed in bottles on your windowsills.

I am about to try to start some tender annuals and a few tropicals.

One is a coral bush (Jatropha) and the corkscrew vine, the budda belly, a couple of tropical hibiscus.

I will be starting then in Rita's room where it never gets below 70 degrees. Most of them will have direct sun in the south facing window and supplemental fluorescent lights.

Can you give me any pointers?

I just use plastic water bottles, the small ones, and cut them almost in half, add either a few small pebbles or some marbles, add either a grow plug ( sponge) or your seed start mix to about three inches, spray them planting medium until about a quarter inch in the bottom, plant your seeds in there, pencil the top to cover seeds, ( that is what I use to move things around since the bottles are so tall) and then tape the top on and leave lid on the top and stick in the window sill. where i have no space in windows, i use the lights. no heat mats. they do get darkness at night. they might get cold against the window. I feel since it works, it is okay. when plants are comig out the tops, time to take lid off and start hardening them off. My buddah belly was started this way, and then moved to it's present pot.

I will take pics of my hibiscus seedlings tommorrow to show you, and of the wild poinsetta Sandy sent me also up and growing in their little bottle green houses.. I do check them every day, all over the house in every window I have bottles in the windows. some times I shake them a bit to get the water back down to the bottom, the condensation some times takes a while to drop down. when I am ready to transplant, I slit the bottoms a bit for drainage, add more soil to the top of the first set of leaves, and let them get stronger, then I move them to their summer spots either in the ground or in their tubs and pots and baskets. easy peasy. I spray them when they are used to the open air, with a light fert water spray, and dust the seeds with cinnoman. no lights at all at night. Here is a baby woodrose morning glory, still in its water bottle planter, sunk into a pistachio bag..now it is just hanging up on a wall downstairs, where the lights are.
the planter in the middle holds a lobata plant, started in a water bottle, and sunken into a pot and trellis.. I have sent this away to a loverly DG'r this am, she just lost her doggie, and felt she might need a cheer me up.
third pic is not real clear, but it is my buddah belly, started last winter in a waterbottle planter.
4th pic is the transplanted seedlings in cups now, under lights, since the windows are full of newly planted seeds.. I just keep rotating plants, soon these plants will go into a hanging basket for the front vine area. when I am out of bottles, I use these cups and plastic baggies zipped up around them, works the same.
Last pic is a different trial, it is a plastic tub with clear wide tape over the top.. it works.. but does not fit on the window.

Good morning...I popped in this morning to get some cat advice.....baby kitty will not leave my plants and dirt alone. Anyway I saw Debra's post about tooth-picks.....so guess what I have been doing for the last hour? LOL.....Thanks Debra....so far, so good. I love our cats but my nerves have been tested too many times with these cats.
Oh I did want to say something about bulbs....share really.....I have a room with one window...facing east so it gets morning light...and I added three lamps and 100 watt light bulbs and not only are the plants flourishing but it has not ran the electric bill up much at all. Really surprised me. So I slipped in a 150 watt bulb just to see what would happen....I love this! I have watched my tomato and pepper plants just thrive and have been transplanting early mornings before anyone gets up. Trying to get a head start on the garden this year and may have gone over board a bit but find myself sneaking up at 5am to enjoy coffee and sit in my "plant room" so to speak. I have more posts to read here and it seems any questions I have are answered before I ask lol....back to reading...love the pics everyone shares!

HI! Have you gotten your box yet, Julia? Oh I hope you like it!

Oh Debra...glad I caught you....I have three rather...um..actually BIG Brugs....Angel Trumpets?....ceiling high...leaves everywhere...how can I tell when these are ready to bloom? I am worried about room and if I need to move some things around. I put all three of them to one side of the room and the room and threw in some worm castings last week....well I just noticed how big these were and what made it stand out were all the green leaves near the ceiling....I will try to get a pic of it.
I am so hoping for some blooms:)



Oh.....I will keep a look out for the box! :)

don't pinch or snip any of the top branches if you want blooms, a lot of people do that , and That is where the Y forms and then you get nice little okra buds and then a bloom!
The tops and ends of the brug trees are where the Y's form. once u get Y's, start looking for ittle tiny buds. If your brugs are this happy ( sounds like they are) I would feed them. They do not like high phosphates like bloom busters, but LOVE tomatoe food.
these pics are from December.. everything is much bigger now, and maya is flushing..

Debra - I've read people using coffee grounds in soil to "sterilize" it. What does coffee grounds do for me? I understand the cinnamon is also used and I think all these things are supposed to protect your seedlings from fungus and/or damping off?

I also read you use windex/amonia spray for bugs. And of course to spray with the hydrogen peroxide mix for fungus.

I get the water bottle process. I like it - I started a coral bush seed just happened to have it in a trade. Don't know how old it is but waiting for it to germinate. I have some budda belly seeds I want to start also. I am using the 'journal' function to keep track of what I start this year because I can't find my little notebook/journal.

coffee grounds just add nitrogen and nutrients and makes soil hold moisture more, it does get mold, so i use cinnamon in the mix with coffee grounds. For the most part, coffee grounds are a snail/slug killer/ it somehow makes them sick and die, that is why I use it out side all the time. It ammends the hard clay, too.
Another DG'r turned me on to the ammonia/windex spray, and Kens Mix on the brug forum has it's good qualities, except I don't drink beer much so I buy the cheapest large lager I can find, use half of it and make red beers out of the rest.
I don't have a lot of money to buy stuff for my gardens, so I recycle a lot and save many annuals over winter. it is just a cheap part of me I think.
These are january pics from the brug room

these are a few more january pics in the outer rooms

it is a challenge to keep annuals going sometimes, but worth it..
such an ugly old basement, turned into my winter heaven.. still in January here..

so many different things, in and out every summer, poor darling son, he moves it all for me. He wants me to keep this all in this summer, I started to move it all in mid august when things were failing from the heat..not all rooms down here are filled, somuch space to use if I had the tables, shelves and lights, but I have improved these growing areas so much over the past few years..

I have tried to keep journals, and tablets, and notes and things, tags and stuff, but it never seems to be consistant, since my frenzy takes over, no time to stop and record what I am doing.. this thread is sort of my journal i guess, I used to use another website to record what I did in the gardens..
still in january here..

My family has accused me of loving my gardens more than them ( the daughters), but Joe is happy when I am happy..

last year I forced bulbs to make a cool spring planter, this year I havn't played with bulbs much, I wish I could stay awake 25 houra a day and work one hour a day and garden the rest of the hours away..

having such an ecclectic collection ( mostly from trades and swaps) is a bonus.. makes it interesting to see the changes they go thru as they grow into adulthood.

Debra, I had no idea you had this thread going! Thanks for the link! Bet your basement smells heavenly???

well right now it does, it has all the daturas and brugs blooming tonight.. ;D

I do love your basement Debra and if Joe's happy, then I'm happy.

I went ahead and put 3 tiny corkscrew vine seeds into the tallest glass container I have - an old sugar dispense w/o the top/spout. I think I mentioned I am trying to start a coral bush seed in a south facing window. I have budda belly seeds that I want to start too. I am going to salvage a glass jelly jar from my recycle bin.

I use all sorts of plastic things, but mostly milk jugs for wintersow. I have started collecting some trays from fruits and produce too that have vents in the sides/tops. I put the word out in my neighborhood that I need plastics to start more seeds in and Court needs plastic bags to pick up the poop of our giant puppy.

I'm going to look for those budda belly seeds and get them up on that southfacing windowsill. :)

xoxo
A.

I give up....for whatever reason I cannot upload photos...grrr LOL

Everyone has had problems when trying to load 5 at a time, try loading maybe 2 or 3 and see what happens?

I will try one or two....seems to have worked

This message was edited Feb 29, 2012 8:33 PM

I am trying to figure out if these babies are ready to bloom:)

Something else that happened....about a year ago someone sent me a hummingbird vine and I was in a hurry and plopped it into a pot of one of my trees...no ideas what kind, it was one I rescued from a dumpster....anyway...I forgot I had put the vine there and when I remembered, I thought it had died....well all was forgotten until this winter....there is like two vines growing beside my poor tree...I assume it is the hummingbird vine...I will add pics...can I separate these somehow without killing my tree?

Amanda...what is a budda belly seed?

Julia, I looked at your brug photos very closely, looks like they are READY to Y, but have not Y'd yet. You will see little "ears" ( that is what they look like to me) when they start to Y. Once they have Y'd, then after some more leafing, you will see teeny buds..
this is frosty, he Y'd, and has buds at this point in time..Same day, Betty Marshall, still putting out vegetive growth, no Y's yet..Chrissy had bloomed all winter the year before, and same time, after I gave a lot of her branches away to people, she has to start over here.. no Y's
Here is Maya, same time of the day, she was still putting out leaves, with no Y's yet either, and lastly Kaitlyn, Y'd, Bloomed, and starting over..
Patience is a virtue.. you need lots of it with these plants, I have found. Once I see a lot of leaf growth, I start feeding on a more regular basis, and then the Y's and buds come.
I gave some master gardeners here in kansas some named brugs I started from seeds from a Brug Hybridizer here on DG. They told me they threw the plants away cuz they wouldn't ever do anything, even with their "pinching" lots of plants get bushier before bloming with pinching, but with brugs, you are taking the bloom cycle away . I am sure you don't pinch, but hopefully other new brug lovers are reading this. BettyDee was the one who told me not to pinch. ( wHEN i WAS NEW HERE)

as far as your tree and vine, I would wait until it is warm enough outside to divide the two root balls away from each other, but me, I would just put them both in a bigger tub and let them grwo together outside.. ( knowing me as I do)
here is a bud pic of Maya....

I love the idea of planting the tree and vine together in a larger tub....I was just worried the vine would take from the tree and kill hit.
Thanks for the "no pinching" tip because I was indeed thinking about doing just that...yikes!
They have all put out beautiful blooms before so I have been excited to see what they would do this year:)

When your trees are too tall to come in for winter, cut them about two thirds down on the stock, root them and then you willl have twice as many, the tops blooming first and bottoms starting all over again.. that is what I do..

I will do that! I think I'd like a picture show me where exactly so I don't do the wrong thing...would love to see more though.
I did find a pic in bloom from last year...I will to upload.
By the way...I was reading your threads and so happy to see how to cut my lilac bush and add to other parts of the yard...thank you!
I am so ignorant about the simplest of things LOL

By the way....does anyone know If need to keep these trimmed? Branches are coming out left and right.
And Debra...what do you "feed" them? I need to get going....I am too addicted to this and could find questions all day I am sure. Have a good one everyone:)

Julia:

I think this is what the budda belly seed turns into:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2445/

I received some seeds in trade marked "Budda Belly," so I hope that's what it is. :D

A.

It's lookig great again this winter there Debra... you're right ... it's rocking down below...
with it having been so warm this year... I'm wondering if a few I left outside will start up growing... here in zone 7 there's a chance... as my brugs at mothers in north Alabama [ also zone 7 ] return from a winter outside.... but up in the air in the planters I've never had one return outside.. but there's still a month well a month and 1/2 or so to go before it will have been a mild winter.. with our first [ and largest ]snow in October.. maybe we'll have our last and largest in March or April.. or heaven forbid...May..
I'm glad Joe's happy with the plants... wish it was the same here.. they are just an item of great contention as it is .. thanks for the link... they all are looking great