This is For Esther Schafer
Yesterday the errand for the day was to get a graduation card for this coming Sunday. As I was walking into the Shopko Home store here in town I couldn’t help but take a detour through the garden hoop. Man, if they sell all of their tomato plants there will be bushels of tomatoes ready for canning this fall. Of course the clearance area of plants caught my eye. The hanging baskets that had been $24.00 were now $12.99. One pot holding Tuber Begonias stopped me in my tracts. It was one pot overflowing with the most beautiful yellow begonias and it brightened up the entire garden hoop.
My mother-in-law, Esther Schafer taught me the love of Tuber Begonias. Esther would save the bulbs from year to year in the used mesh onion sacks. In the early spring of the year she would get them up from the basement and give them a hearty dusting of Garden Guard. Pots of soil with a tuber each would be found on her living room window sills. As the weather warmed up the sprouted tubers adored the north steps of the house and soon there were blossoms that thrilled everyone that came to visit. The blossoms take the texture of wax and when one blossoms dies off there is another to take it’s place.
During the time when Orlin and I farmed, Orlin had taken two retired milk cans and cut them off with the cutting torch about four inches from the handles. When painted black and tipped upside down with the cover in place they made the most beautiful urns for Tuber Begonias. Placed by the north door of our home we also had visitors that were thrilled with the endless blossoms.
Tuber Begonia Incubator
Back to real time: I bought the overgrown pot at Shopko and worked my whiles. There were four plants crowded into that one hanging plant. I am sure when the early spring demanded the greenhouses to get the stock ready for resale it took four plants to make it look attractive enough to warrant the $24.99 price. Right now the four pots are being sheltered from the winds under the lilacs.
After the contents of my four pots have had a chance to recover from being pulled apart, I will have an array of blossoms to be placed hither, thither and yon for the entire season. The secret for continued blooms is a fair amount of fertilizer every other week. Yup, it’s a good thing that you taught me, Esther.