GARDENING: The Charlie Brown Christmas Cactus

Our Christmas cactus has seen better days. My wife said to do something about it so I'm repotting it. This is how it looked before I started.

First, it's off to the store to get some cactus potting mix.

Next, with some gloves because there is still a few small and sharp needles, I remove it from the hanging basket and knock off all the old mix.

I find an appropriate pot to put it in.

Fill about half way with mix...

...and tamp down.

The plant kind of fell apart when I removed the mix from it so I pick the healthiest looking piece and put it in the pot, fill the rest of the way with mix, and tamp down the mix very firmly with a hammer handle.

Water it in with B1...

...and put it where it will get normal watering.

Let's hope it come back strong.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2019 - All Rights Reserved

Preparing for Christmas in March

It's way overdue but I'm finally tackling the Christmas cactus this weekend. By my reckoning, it's been in it's basket for at least 6 years now.

In that time, another plant...a kalanchoe 'mother of thousands' (bryophyllum diagremontianum)...volunteered into the basket (that's the leaves with all the little leaflets in the picture above...the pink flowers are the Christmas cactus).

Removing the plant from the basket, I see the only soil left is whatever the roots could hang onto for themselves.

It's a bit of a delicate operation to remove it from the basket without too much damage. 

The kelanchoe is in bloom. It has pretty flowers, I'm going to save a piece and put it in it's own pot.

Here's a few pieces of the kelanchoe that I'm putting aside for later.

A coconut husk mat goes in to line the basket. This will provide a good rooting medium and also help keep the soil intact.  It's very well draining and should help prevent rot, which is never good in a succulent like this.

I put in some fine orchid bark in the bottom to assist in draining. It will also break down slowly and extend the life of the potting soil I'm putting on top of it and, to be honest, I don't really have enough potting mix to go around today so this helps me to fill the basket properly.

Once I get the plant in place where I want it, it's just a matter of filling in and tamping with potting soil then watering in.

There, all done. Just hanging it back up on its original shepherd's hook to recuperate. I'll be moving it under the eave later and giving it a dripper to irrigate.

The kelanchoe gets similar treatment but will now be growing in its own pot on the orchid bench.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
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Keeping up Appearances

Checking into the status of the garden. First, in this era a megadroughts, how about a look at water usage? It's raining today, that's good, but we're still under rationing.

Last month's bill was $17 and change. this compared to the same time last year when we paid, well, more (the water company's website is down and I can't look up last year's bill right now). There is also a strange credit on the bill of a couple of bucks, called the "CA: LA Payment Assistance" credit, that I don't know what it's for but in water usage, we used 6,732 gallons this May and 7,480 gallons last May.

My next door neighbor, who has a large green lawn that she only waters once a week, has a bill over $180 for the same period. Yikes!

The tomatoes are busting out all over. Many fruit on our hybrid plant and cherry tomato plant. The heirloom plant is showing lots of flowers but no fruit yet.

Our chiles are doing better this year. I used this Anaheim chile in our eggs this weekend and there's some gorgeous pasilla chiles on another plant. I'll maked stuffed peppers out of them someday.

Got six ears of corn showing so far. 

The grapes are showing slight signs of smut so I hit them with some sulfur dust on Sunday.

My wife made me take the cage off of our zucchini, now it's showing signs of animal damage and I still haven't gotten any fruit. I put the cage back on, let's see how it does.

It's June. The vendor at the farmers market who sold us the dragon fruit plants told me to cut back by a third and we should see flowers by May. I did. Got lot's of new growth but no flowers or fruit yet.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

A Mother's Job is never done.

This is our Christmas Cactus. We got it six years ago and it's been in a hanging basket next to the orchid bench ever since. I would imagine we should think about repotting it soon.

It's a gorgeous flowering plant, reliably blooming, as it's name suggest, every holiday season.

This post is not about that, however. It's about the alien that came along with it.

I'm talking about the volunteer, or weed if you will, Kalanchoe daigremontiana that grew out of the side of the basket.

It's almost taken over the basket but it still let's the Christmas cactus alone. It puts out thousands of pretty little lavender flowers. It also produces little leaflets that drop off to create new plant, giving is the common name of Mother of Thousands.

Funny, though. None of those little leaflets that have dropped off have created any new plants. It seems content to crowd in with the Christmas cactus.

Apropos of nothing, the camellia next to it is also blooming, giving us a very colorful corner of the garden in this California winter.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Fall Harvest Preview

Look at that...just look at that! A home-grown tomato! Finally, at the Cheapskate's garden, it looks like we'll get some full-size tomatoes from our garden.

We've also got a good bloom of Dragon fruit flower. As you can see, the ants really like it. So do the bees. Hope to have some fruit soon.

The orchid bench will soon be the focus of our efforts.

This cymbidium is showing the first flower spike of the season.

This kalanchoe daigremontiana is our best volunteer. It's coming out of it's host again.

That host? It's this Christmas cactus that will have another spectacular display for the holidays.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
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Peppering up the Premises

Finally getting a chance to get back out to the garden, starting off with the beginning harvest of our bell peppers, pictured above. Got three ripe ones, ready to go, one for each of us. More on that below.

The plumeria always does good, this year they were exceptional. One problem...if you want to call it that...is that branches get too heavy and want to break off.  If you want, just stick it in the ground and it will become a new tree.

I go ahead and break this on off. I've already got enough plumeria, so this one goes in the trash.

More dragon fruit is ripening. I need to find a good recipe for this beautiful but somewhat bland fruit.

And what's that? Why it's a tomato! About time.

Back to the bell peppers...I cut them in half, spread a little cream cheese in them, put in some bacon bits, more cream cheese, top with shredded pizza blend cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, and jack), put in foil, and barbecue.

When done, I serve it with these delicious grilled chicken thighs.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
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The Dragon Slayer!

UPDATE! See "The Rest of the Story," below

See that beautiful, luscious, and delicious fruit above? No, we didn't grow it but  we're trying. It's called a dragon fruit and my wife took that picture at the incredible Viktulienmarkt in Munich.

It's similar to a prickly pear or pitaya in that it grows on a cactus.  Imagine my wife's surprised  pleasure when she found some plants on sale at our local farmers market.

We grow them in a lonely corner of our backyard, just behind the gate, where they get some water from a nearby sprinkler head.  They grown like crazy and get very top heavy, necessitating the tomato cages and stakes that you see.

After a couple of years of lots of growth, we finally got a bloom. Beautiful white flowers that last about half a day.

Unfortunately, we only got the one flower so there was no partner to pollinate it. There are a couple of buds on the plant now, we're crossing our fingers that we'll get fruit in the next few months.

January, 2013 - ...and now, "The Rest of the Story..."

Well, one of the extra blooms opened and, surprise, it pollinated.  Soon, it was obvious that a fruit was developing and started to turn pink.

We kept an eye on it, our one and only...and first...dragon fruit.  At Christmas, it seemed like it could ripen no more so we picked it along with some of our citrus.

Tonight, we cut it open and tasted it. The good news is that if you don't like your fruit really sweet, this just has a very light sweetness to it. The bad news is that if you DO like your fruit really sweet...like we do...then it tastes nice and clean but a little bland.

Oh well, we'll keep the plants and see how they taste next year.

Darryl
Copyright 2012 - Darryl Musick
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