Broccoli, Mustard and Elephant Garlic Planted 

After dinner, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about how to grow Dragonfruits, I have 3 existing varieties, two recently grown from cutting that I acquired and a bunch that I grew from seeds year ago. I’m. Now contemplating where in our garden I can plant the Dragonfruits so they don’t stay small in their pots.

Afterwards, I did some late night planting in the back yard before I got freaked out by mysterious noises.

Broccoli and Mustard Sown

I planted some Calabrese Broccoli and Yanagawa Tanaka Mustard seeds into 3 inch pots which I will divided later (my new preferred method of growing seeds).

Elephant Garlic

I also broke apart an Elephant Garlic that I bought from the grocery and planted the 9 bulblets into 3 inch pots.

Elephant Garlic Broken Up

I’ll plant these out into the garden when they start sprouting a bit. 

Strawberry Popcorn are Forming

Gardening on the Last Weekend in August

Saturday, I cleaned up the square where I previously planted the four Fun Jen Bok Choy that was attacked by some digging critter.

Four Red Winter Kale Planted

In its place, I planted four Red Winter Kale plants and placed wire edging around it to try to deter whatever critter did the digging last time.

Bok Choy 'Fun Jen' Potted Up

I then decided not to plant some of the other Fen Jen Bok Choy in the square foot garden bed and planted four in a large Daiso pot.

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Tricolor' Potted

The Tricolor Hydrangea that I recently purchased looked like it need to be potted up, so I did that, placing it in a 3-4 gallon pot. I also moved it over to a more shaded area.

My Aunt and Cousins came over and I gave them some Red Giant Mustard and a cutting from both my Santa Barbara Red Dragonfruit and the Dragonfruit that I grew many years ago.

Dragonfruit Progress

Now that I see my old Dragonfruit plant getting bigger and bigger, I really need to figure out where to plant them. I initially thought of planting it by a pole in the front yard, but I noticed the Santa Barbara Dragonfruit in that area gets too much sun and is getting bleached out, so I need to fine a more shaded location.

Unknown Succulent

As I was cleaning an area under our Bosc Pear tree, I noticed a multi-stem succulent that was growing there, it started rooting but was still able to pull it up. I thought it would look nice if it were properly planted into a pot and given more light. So I planted it into a 3 gallon pot. I didn’t know what it was, so I posted a query with a photo of it to Flickr and Instagram and some responded that it was a Sedum praealtum.

I noticed that the Bromeliads that I purchased back in June (2016) are doing well.

Neoregelia 'Lucky ???'

The Aechmea recurvata of them actually has two pups now.

Aechmea recurvata

I moved the Echeveria ‘Chroma’ from the front yard where I thought I may get attached by slugs and snails to the back to join all my other succulents.

Echeveria 'Chroma' Blooming

I took six cuttings from a broken Iresine branch and also potted up a little Spearmint cutting.

Iresine and Spearmint Cuttings

It was already dark Sunday evening and I ended my gardening by potting up a Masdevallia barlaeana ‘Harold’ that was still in a 2-inch pot into a hanging Orchid basket.

Masdevallia barlaeana 'Harold'

More Brassica Sowing

More Brassica Sowing

Sowed a few more Brassica seeds:
– Bok Choy ‘Joi Choi’
– Bok Choy ‘Fun Jen’
– Kale ‘Dinosaur’ (G2/2010)
– Arugula (G2/2012)
– Kale ‘Red Winter’

Unknown Insect

I found this insect near our Rose bush (here in the Northern San Francisco Bay Area) while gardening… It’s the first time I’ve ever seen this kind of bug and I have no clue what it is

Can anyone identify it?

Unknown Insect

Vallejo Garden Club Feb 2016 Meeting

Today at the February 2016 Vallejo Garden Club meeting, we learned a little bit about Olives. Here’s a few photos from the meeting.

And Grafting Starts

It was such a nice day to work in the garden. Temperatures were in the mid to high 70s and I could here the bees buzzing around the flowers that were blooming in the backyard.

Inca Plum Blooms

Some of the fruit trees, specifically the Plums trees, were starting to flower and bud, so it was time to start grafting. I took the scions out of the refrigerator and inventory of what I got.

2016 Scions

I collected the Plums, Plucots, Pluots, Apricot, Cherry and Avocado scions… found my grafting knife and grafting tape… got my camera and started grafting.

I did a total of 11 grafts including:
– Asian Plums: Elephant Heart and Black Splendor
– Apricot: Canadian White
– Plumcot: Apex
– Pluot: Prosser and Dapple Dandy (Dinosaur Egg)
– Cherry: Coral
– Avocado: Mexiola

A Little Bit of Winter Gardening…

I got a little bit of gardening done this weekend. I went through the cell packs I planted in the late fall and got rid of the pots which failed to grow seedlings. I found some Mushrooms in some.

Mushroom Mushroom Mushroom...

There were Celtuce that surprisingly survived, so I planted those into a large Daiso pot.

Transplanted Celtuce

I also pulled a lot of weeds near Veggie Beds 1 and 2 and pick off damaged and dead leaves from plants.

Litchi Tomato Flower Buds

As I was weeding I noticed that there was another volunteer Litchi Tomatoes, making the total to three plants now. They are also starting to form flower buds. These are sure strong plants… or maybe they like cooler weather. I’ll have to pot these up into a large container and give Litchi Tomatoes another try.

Calendulas

Around the beds, volunteer Calendulas and Daffodils are blooming.

Daffodils

Spring Starflower

I even caught the first Spring Starflower to bloom, which means there are about 100 more to come.

Fruit Flower Buds

Also starting to bloom are some fruit trees, including the two unknown Asian Plums, the grafted Inca Plum and surprisingly a very very early grafted Anna Apple. I’ll have to start grafting Plums next weekend.

I wish I had more time to garden.