Vanilla.. Um... HELP!

[Otterinaround]

I was hoping to update after a year... But things being as they are with the situation in the Middle East, I took a bit longer to get back home this time.
I thought I would add some pictures to update on Betsy's status.

Apparently, someone snuck in a variegated Vanilla buddy for Betsy and now the two are permanently intertwined on the trellis.

I have also noticed a little tendril from the "SNEAK" headed right down into the water... INTERESTING!

Heaven help me when I have to re-pot.

I thank you for all the help suggestions and support.
Now that I have gotten over the panic stage I get to pace back and forth like a father in the Birthing Suite waiting for Betsy to decide to bloom.

Any suggestions on the sort of alcohol I should use to cure the beans? (or is that me getting baseball gloves and football pads before the Doctor says "it's a boy"?)

[flhiker]

You use alcohol only to make extract. You first need to get it to flower. then you hand pollinate it to produce pods (beans). when the pods mature you need to dry them PROPERLY (it takes months) then and only then will they develop that wonderful vanilla smell and taste. I personally would use the beans without making extract. split the bean and scrape out the seeds and make anything requiring vanilla. save the bean and add it to some sugar to make vanilla sugar. Lot of work. that's why it's so expensive.

These were wild ones I found in the Fakahatchee Strand

[Junebug]

Betsy looks much better and she'll probably be twice as large this time next year. Keep us posted.

[JanS]

Geez, Otter - I thought I had obsessive relationships with my orchid plants, but you've definitely topped that! I am glad I read your exhausting story on my employer's time (hmmm, that would be me, so I guess I didn't get away with anything...)

There seems to have been a spike (pardon the pun) in vanilla growing interest on this forum lately (myself included). Here's a really good link to much information about growing, pollinating AND curing vanilla beans:

Vanilla - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judging from the photos in the above link, others I've found on the internet, and descriptions of the plant's flowering and vanilla bean production - both Otter's and my plants have a long way to go to achieve the kind of stem thickness (and leaf size) that seems to come with flowering. Just like you Otter, my wife can't wait for our own vanilla bean harvest, and has enough recipes collected to take care of a hundred pounds of beans !

HAS ANYONE WHO PARTICIPATES IN THIS FORUM ACTUALLY MANAGED TO GET A VANILLA BEAN ON THEIR VANILLA PLANT AT HOME OR IN A GREENHOUSE???

Pleeeease, let us anxious Vanillians know!!

[Otterinaround]

Originally Posted by JanS

Geez, Otter - I thought I had obsessive relationships with my orchid plants, but you've definitely topped that!
Judging from the photos in the above link, others I've found on the internet, and descriptions of the plant's flowering and vanilla bean production - both Otter's and my plants have a long way to go to achieve the kind of stem thickness (and leaf size) that seems to come with flowering.
Just like you Otter, my wife can't wait for our own vanilla bean harvest, and has enough recipes collected to take care of a hundred pounds of beans !

HAS ANYONE WHO PARTICIPATES IN THIS FORUM ACTUALLY MANAGED TO GET A VANILLA BEAN ON THEIR VANILLA PLANT AT HOME OR IN A GREENHOUSE???

Pleeeease, let us anxious Vanillians know!!

Ok... here are the measurements so we can make it all lubriciously empiric...

Betsy's initial stem width


Betsy's initial leaf length


Betsy's Current AVERAGE stem width


Betsy's Current Average Leaf length


I'd love to see some numbers from wild flowering orchids as Jan mentioned... It'd give me a great benchmark!

oh, and then the sneak's numbers

and length

[lepetitmartien]

Originally Posted by JanS

HAS ANYONE WHO PARTICIPATES IN THIS FORUM ACTUALLY MANAGED TO GET A VANILLA BEAN ON THEIR VANILLA PLANT AT HOME OR IN A GREENHOUSE???

(quiet!)

I'm growing one for 30 years, at home, and no, I didn't. But I only learned last year what to do : light light and light. As it's on a window sill in Paris, facing west, I doubt I'll manage without artificial light.

I know a member of one of the french forum did managed to get flowers and beans, but he's just south of the Loire (a river important for climate divisions in France) and with a veranda. He did this in 2011, it's too early for 2012.

Note that one trick is used in plantations: they cut the growth end a bit a few months before the flowering. But the main thing is the light.

I'll take measures of my planifolia to check with yours.

[Junebug]

My 4 year old planifolia bloomed this year, but I didn't try pollinating it. Maybe next year. This is a photo of one of the blooms. Vanilla planifolia - Orchid Board Galleries

[Otterinaround]

I had a feeling light had something to do with it... Maybe looping it over itself letting it grow out... Misting the support daily... letting the soil get quite humid. Then suddenly in Spring... WHAM! Letting the leader see a wedge of light all day long... A LOT OF LIGHT TOO... Just to test this... I rolled the plant out from under the awning. It spends most of the day in reflected sun that passes through a fine mesh screening (saw the same screening on one of the plantations). The leader peaking out of the top of that loopy spaghetti mess that is Betsy was the first to feel this flash...
I pulled her out just far enough to give the tip day long exposure under the screeing... It looks like the tip went crazy! It's gotten quite fat!
What worries me is that soon we will be seeing some major dips in temperature... even as low as 17C(68F)! Now that all this sun and plotting is JUST beginning to work.. THE WEATHER DECIDES TO GO ALL NOEL on me!

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[lepetitmartien]

If the Vanilla is active, and it'll be most of the year for you (it's not in winter here) it'll like to get the feet slightly wet, not damp. Beware it'll hate to have both cold and wet… (ending in no roots)

Air humidity 80-90%, you can mist the aerial roots once or twice a day.

For the temperatures, the bottom limit not to reach is 15°C. It likes a little down at night of 2-3°C, and it can grow between 16 and 35°C (so 16-32 to 19-35°C) but it thrives home in the mid twenties.

For light, it's a LOT (20000-40000 lux) so full sun where I am, in the middle of Europe, but half shade with maybe some weeks a year with more under the tropics. Note that sunny does mean cooking. You'll have to adapt to your situation.

[Leafmite]

I am in Ohio so, no, I am not expecting blooms. I grow a chocolate tree, cinnamon tree, allspice, peppercorn, etc, so the vanilla is just a part of the collection. I don't expect to get chocolate beans, either.