Potato plants in bloom! I have never seen a potato flower. One of the two potato towers is in bloom. Yes, I said two potato towers, though one is not yet a tower. There are more updates than what is listed in the title. So let's get to it.
In this post I found that something was feasting on my cabbage and potato patch. Whatever it was, it got into Potato Tower 1 and I saw his climb broke one of the plants at the middle of his climb.
You can see that one of the healthy plants was broken (bottom half of the photo). I closed off the top of the potato tower by simply threading a wooden rod through the mesh and making sure there were no openings for hungry thieves to get through.
There is only the one flower for now. Last year I did not get flowers. Others are starting to bud, here is what they look like when they start to flower.
We also see Potato Tower 2 in the background. I had planted 4 layers of potato spuds at the bottom of that pot and something was eating them too. I am not sure if any of what I had planted is still there but the most recent layer started coming up within a week of making the pot inaccessible to rodents.
Here is a shot down inside PT2.
Enough about potatoes.
Castor Plant
The one I borrowed from the nature reserve, Shh...
I have three, two grown from seeds when this one flowered last year. Here it is. It is almost as tall as I am. The new leaves are reddish and shiny.
Each leaf has a reddish stem, and the older leaves turn yellow in turn. Then the stem breaks off of the main stem. I use these broad leaves as walls in my potato tower. Leaves on the mesh wall help to reduce soil loss when it rains. They work like a retaining wall does in construction near highway bridges.
Carnivorous Curl
Yesterday I wrote about how carnivorous plants can curl around their prey?
It is pretty common. when a fly lands on a leaf, only its legs are touching the tentacles. In order to digest it properly, the leaf wraps around the insect in order to touch its digestive juices to the body of the insect.
I did not have any that were curled at the time of that writing. When I saw one doing that this morning, I took a shot of it, thinking you may want to see what I was talking about.
MJ
This plant lasted all winter and seems to be doing worse in the heat as we are starting to hit 80 degrees during the day.
Mary's larger leaves are all drying out and falling off. She gets plenty of water and some fertilizer every week. I am not sure what else I can do for her.
Close up, there seems to be some supple growth but I am not sure.
Her crazy upside down sister is looking the same.
I would blame the orientation but the original plants are both doing the same thing. I have never had these kinds of plants in the past, so I do not even know if they are supposed to live through winter or if they die every year when the summer is over.
The little one up top seems to be doing fine.
If any of these dies, I cannot replace them because they are all female, so I am told, and they will not produce seeds in their buds.
The Jalapenos
Just hanging out and healthy. Here is the biggest of the six that I have growing. If you look, you will see that it is still holding on to the shell of the seed I planted. Mother's apron strings. I am working on another like this for chilli peppers. Upcoming in a post.
I really believe these kinds of plants will do much better upside down because they will not need to be tied up but only time will tell.
These all took so long to germinate and I have one more to plant. I may drill one more hole for that one to be added.
Here is what the little ones look like, one week after planting them.
These were beautiful last year. I did not kill them but was sad to see them die. But wait!
As the weather got warmer here, they started sprouting new leaves at the top of each dead stalk.
I am not sure what kind of plant they are but I did an image search and found this exact plant, but it says they are native to Madagascar (I live nowhere near there). According to the search, it is called. Devil's Backbone. Perfect for Halloween time.
Back to my promise of yesterday. I learned that I have new twin Binata plants and I said I would add this surgery to my update. . .
The twins were hugging when I brought another pot for the smaller one. I chose purple for it.
I took a wooden skewer and tried to push the roots of each away from the other.
While feeling around in the moss, I felt the mother's branch (that they had both grown from) connecting them. One will surely die if I do not cut that branch that is below the surface. I could not clip it and snap a picture at the same time, not enough hands.
Once that was clipped, the smaller of the two fell to the left.
I took as much moss as I could that was under the little one and placed it in the new pot. The larger of the two had one dropping branch, which I supported with a skewer, stuck in the moss.
I have done thirty or so of these surgeries just this morning, so I am good at it. I am not sure if the HiveGarden would tolerate another mass potting of babies or not, but I am willing to share those photos as well. Repotting carnivorous plants is what I do weekly in the spring time. I have so many new plants sprouting up under their parents.
I did not mean for this one to be so long, but I did have to add this last one because I said I would.
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