Rizzo's Greenhouse & Flower Shop

FREEZE WARNING!!! If you haven't moved in your tender plants & picked the rest of your tender garden produce yet, now is the time! It is supposed to get close to freezing in Central PA tonight! We're picking the last few green tomatoes, tomatillos & peppers now and just moved some plants into the greenhouse! You can keep tomatoes for a long time! There are several methods, but to keep a long time, set the tomatoes upside down, in a cardboard box, in a cool dry place. Or wrap each in a sheet of newspaper & set in a box in a cool, dry place. Or set in a sunny window to ripen fast! ***. MOVE IN OR COVER YOUR FALL MUMS for the night also! A hard frost or freeze will shorten their life!***

If you saved poinsettias from last Christmas and are hoping to get them to turn color by Christmas, NOW is the time to start treating them differently! We promised a few customers last Christmas that we'd remind you when it's time and give instructions on what to do. So the beginning of Oct, we start getting darkness for 11 hours a day. So your poinsettias need COMPLETE darkness for approximately 11 hours a night (which they will get naturally right now, if you have them i...n a room with no artificial light). They need to have full sun - in a nice sunny window, during the day, and continue to water regularly. They need this light/darkness exposure for 40 days in order for the bracts to turn color. The colorful leaves you see on a poinsettia are not flowers, they are bracts. Buds, followed by tiny yellow flowers will appear in the very center of the bract. Do not cut your poinsettias back now - too late for that. If you feel you really need to repot them, just go to a slightly larger pot with fresh, new bagged potting soil around them. Do not over pot them! Just keep them watered regularly & fertilize! Their bracts should turn by Christmas! Any questions, just message us or call (570-753-3603). See more

For those of you who asked for cool weather fall garden crops to plant - they are ready! We have a nice selection of assorted lettuce, bok choy, and napa cabbage. Plant now for harvest later in the fall!

Our cherry tomatoes are slowing down now, but if you still have a lot coming on, a good thing to do with them is roast them! I wash them and cut them in half. Then place them cut side up on a non stick sheet pan or a sheet pan with parchment paper. Drizzle lightly with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder & a dusting of good Italian seasoning (or just dried basil & oregano). Then roast in the oven (convection if you have it) at 250 for a couple h...ours until they lose most of their water. They almost get to the consistency of sun dried tomatoes. I freeze them in ziplock freezer bags then and use them all winter. Paul likes them on sandwiches, but you can add them to bread dough for a yummy tomato & cheese bread, top pizza with them or mix in with pasta dishes, and even great in scrambled eggs. They're amazing in olive oil & garlic as a topper to good Italian bread! They are so incredibly sweet & have an intense tomato flavor! *Note - You can do the same thing with Italian tomatoes too - they just take longer to roast! See more

Another yummy idea for your end of summer tomatoes - roasted pizza sauce or marinara sauce! I've been making both the past couple weeks. Very simple! Wash & core your tomatoes and roughly chop. Skin if you wish, but I normally don't unless the skin is really tough. I use a large stainless steel roasting pan (must be stainless steel or acid safe). Throw the chopped tomatoes into the pan (fill it up) add a large onion - roughly chopped, and several cloves of garlic. You c...an also add a hot pepper or 2 (according to your taste & heat preference), or even add a sweet pepper chopped if you'd like. Very versatile recipe. Then I add a little salt and pepper and either pizza seasoning (if You want to make pizza sauce) or a little dried Italian seasoning(if you want to make marinara). Drizzle with about 1/4 cup of good olive oil. Then roast in the oven, low & slow, - 250 for 4 to 6 hours, until it starts to brown a little on top. I do stir it periodically also - once every half hour or so. If I'm making marinara I don't let it go as long (maybe 4 hours) because I like my marinara thinner. I let pizza sauce go longer so that it's more condensed & thicker. After I remove it from the oven I add a handful of fresh basil leaves & parsley leaves, then puree! I use a nutribullet to puree my pizza sauce - which pulverizes the seeds & skin. I like marinara a little chunkier, so pulse it a little in the food processor. Adjust the seasoning - add more salt if necessary. Then I freeze the sauce in either zip lock bags or freezer containers! Freezes great! Easy to unthaw for a quick pizza topping or to top pasta with for a quick meal! All healthy ingredients & tastes so much better than store bought sauce! See more

It's hard to get jar lids right now and canning is a lot of work! A good thing to do with those extra tomatoes you're getting right now is freeze them! My mother in law, Anne Rizzo, used to do this and got me doing it. Much easier than canning! Just wash your tomatoes good and core them. Then put them into ziplock freezer bags. 4 tennis ball size tomatoes fit perfectly in a quart size bag. Of course, use a gallon size for larger tomatoes. So they keep we'll frozen fo...r at least a few months (I've even kept them longer than that). When you're ready to use them pull them out of the freezer and individually rinse each tomato in warm water while rubbing the skin. The skin literally pops right off! Then you can then chop them up and use them in chili, or soups, or make homemade spaghetti sauce with them! If I was going to make spaghetti sauce I'd use 2 bags (8 tomatoes). Remove skin as I mentioned above & roughly chop them. Saute a half of a finely diced onion until soft in a Tbs of olive oil. Then add a couple cloves of finely chopped garlic, cook for just a minute or so with the onion. Add your roughly chopped, partially frozen tomatoes. Add salt & pepper to taste with a tsp of dried Italian seasoning. Simmer until your sauce cooks down a bit - maybe 20 mins. If you like a thicker American style sauce just add a can of tomato paste & cook a little longer. If you like a smooth (not chunky) sauce you can puree it in a food processor or use an immersion blender. Add fresh chopped basil & parsley at the end if you have it. Serve over your choice of pasta! Easy sauce! And much better & cheaper than the store bought jarred sauce. See more

I forgot to post these pics - this was our largest tomato this season! Virginia Sweets! 1.7 lbs! And the flavor was exceptional! It's a golden tomato with pockets of red. This one ended up topping burgers, but the slice was way bigger than the burger & the bun! I'm going to try to post some ways (and recipes)we've been using our fresh veggies and some alternatives to canning.

It's been a pretty good gardening season despite the heat & dryness! A good garden depends on great weather, healthy plants, and of course a little know how. Tomatoes & peppers did great this year! We watered religiously all summer. Didn't hear of too many blight & disease issues thanks to the heat & dryness. We'd like to invite you to share pics or comment on your favorite varieties from this season! We plant a wide variety of tomatoes & peppers each season and try to ...compare between varieties. Sometimes we find ones we like better than others, so we drop the lesser varieties the following year. If you had a particular tomato or pepper that did well, please let us know! We try to grow more disease resistant varieties, but there are some old heirloom types that even though they aren't disease resistant, they're hard to beat. Here are some pics of some of our summer bounty! Show us some of yours! * please note - we will be closed Sun & Mon to enjoy Labor Day weekend with our family, but if you need something just message us! See more

Don't miss out on Bloom Sum at the greenhouse today! And while you're here, get a sneak peak at our fall blooming mums! They're ready to go! Today special only: $1 off of our medium 8" & 9" mums! Now is the time to plant them if you want them to winter over! The earlier you plant fall mums, the better chance they have of getting a good root system established before winter! So come on over 9 to 3 for some Bloom Sum & Mums!

Bloom Sum will be in front of the greenhouse tomorrow (Monday) 9 am to 3 pm! Stop by for a specialty coffee, tea or a yummy small plate special!

Squash Vine Borers are becoming a problem for many in our area right now - including us! So if you plant squash, pumpkins or gourds you may want to read this! It's long, sorry! Squash Vine Borers are the larva of the Sesiid Moth - which looks more like a bee or wasp, than a moth. Lifecycle: They over winter as a pupa under the soil. In May, the moths emerge, mate, and lay eggs 3 days later on a squash, pumpkin, or sometimes even a cucumber or melon plant. The eggs ar...e deposited mostly on the stems at the base of the plants. After the eggs hatch (early summer), the larvae bore into the stems and feed for 4 to 6 weeks. Often more than one borer per stem. When they're mature in 4 to 6 weeks, they exit the vine (which by then is usually almost dead), and bury themselves in the soil to pupate. And the cycle repeats. Signs: watch for an entrance hole & sawdust like frass (excrement) on the stems of your squash & pumpkin plants. The stem may feel soft & mushy. Watch for wilting leaves - especially when it's hot and sunny and if you've been watering regularly. Eventually, the plant dies. Prevention: watch for the hovering moths mid May through mid June. Look for eggs at the base of your plants. Remove & destroy them if you find them! You can wrap the base of the stems with aluminum foil to prevent egg laying (I'm going to do this next year when I plant my plants). You can also dust or spray the stems with Spinosad or Pyrethrins (which are natural, but toxic to honey bees, so use caution when using those). If you can find the active borers in the stem, you can split the stem carefully with a razor blade, remove & destroy the borers, then bury the stem. This method isn't the best, and is risky to the plant, but sometimes works, so might be worth trying. You can also spray the base of the plant with pyrethrins mid to late May (but again, risky for bees). Sprinkling Diatomaceous Earth on the stems may help too (and that's safe for bees if not used on the flowers). Some people have found that injecting the infected stems with BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis) works too. So these nasty borers are hard to stop once they start, but with a little detective work, determination, and some preventative measures, you could save your plants! Bad news - if you had them this summer, most likely you will next summer also - unless you can break their lifecycle! Good news - they don't like yellow crookneck squash plants or butternut squash plants as much! See more

To help you think cool thoughts today: It's Christmas in July at the greenhouse! Our poinsettia cuttings have arrived! We already potted the large pots (the ones that get huge) and will be potting up the smaller pots this week! Stay cool & hydrated, and remember to keep your plants well watered!

My amazing lunch today: Tomato & Burrata Tart with fresh sage & oregano and a Vietnamese coffee with honey lavender syrup from Bloom Sum! Stop by soon! It's so good!