spread the peace . how to divide plants for sharing

Plants make wonderful additions to holiday baskets. As well as salads, peas, potatoes and tomatoes for Christmas dinner you can grow the presents!

I am popping in very quickly this morning. It is 6.20 am and baby will be handed out soon. I have never known a baby who will not sleep longer than a couple of hours. He goes to sleep quite happily but awakes ready to play sometimes twenty minutes later. Just awake. He drinks well when he is hungry and is piling on the weight but awake.

He smiles and hangs out and listens carefully to stories, he either chatters away in his baby language or gazes around in wonder but seldom drops into a deep sleep.

So I have him in the early mornings so his mother can sleep a little.

The compact kitchens garden

The peas are enjoying the cool spring and podding up nicely. We picked a few to eat when they were young but the rest I am leaving to pick as baby peas.

Baby is going to enjoy those!

Yesterday we had a light rain throughout the day so I set the indoor plants - the ones I could carry - out into the rain to clean off their dusty leaves and have a good soak.

Most plants are potted in a commercial, bark-based mix. Once it dries out, it’s very hard to rewet without a long soak. The water runs through without wetting all the roots contributing to die out. So I set the plant pot in a bucket and pour enough water through until the plant is sitting in deep water.

Then leave it for a few hours. Overnight sometimes. Then drain and bring back inside.

This Peace Lily needs dividing and potting up. Spring is the perfect time for this.

Here is how to divide a plant like this lily.

Gently tip the whole plant out of its pot and ease the root ball apart with your fingers. You’ll find several crowns at the base, each with a cluster of leaves - these are the new plants. Coax each one free from the main clump, wriggling it gently until the roots loosen. If you need to trim a few roots, that’s fine - Peace Lilies are wonderfully forgiving.

Trim any sad leaves.

Have a few pots ready with fresh potting mix and tuck each new plant into its own home. I’ll return the mother plant to her original pot with new mix and more room for her roots. Water thoroughly to settle in the roots.

Keep the young plants well watered and in the shade while they recovers

This works for any divideable plant like hostas, hellebores, daylilies, irises, ferns, or spider plants and clumping herbs like chives and mint.

Spring is a good time to pot up root bound plants but indoors and out.

All the new lilies will grow on in the potting shed and go into Christmas baskets for the neighbours. There are enough plants in the house.

If you are using old pots wash them in a bucket of water with a teaspoon of bleach. You don’t want to pass on anything nasty.

In Illinois John and his mother always raced each other to see who could have a tomato on the table by the Fourth of July.

Here in the Southern Hemisphere we race to see if we can have a tomato on the table for Christmas.

My Dad was always trying for potatoes and new peas for Christmas. We will certainly have the peas and the potatoes are growing nicely in their coffee sacks. Today I will tuck more potting mix around the stems of the potatoes. Soon I will switch to straw.

Gardeners always look at their gardens with the future in their eyes.

We know how big something will grow, we imagine what a corner will look like in six weeks, we see years down the road sometimes. Someone else might see our gardens as a little scrappy but we see a lush future.

I see a lot of tomato blossoms too! From blossom to a ripe tomato takes about six to eight weeks. The little cherry tomatoes are faster, the big beefsteak tomatoes will take longer.

As long as there is not a nasty chill or a heatwave - and each of those can happen but gardeners are optimists - we should have tomatoes in the plate with new potatoes and peas for our Christmas guests.

Baby is coming!!

Have a gorgeous evening/day.

See you tomorrow

Celi