My Shelves and Growlights

Posted on by

I missed carpool because I worked a little late, so I had to ride the BART, then take a city link bus to get to Vallejo. I got home around 8:45pm and was so tired. Once I walked in the house, I saw a package from Rosy Dawn Gardens. YEAY!!! … My Coleus…. I took photos, but they are still in my camera. I’ll post them later today.

Before I post them, I wanted to show photos of the shelves I added in my bedroom to grow seedlings and overwinter cuttings. This photo was taken about a month ago.

Growlight Shelves

Below is a new photo of the bottom shelf that mostly houses my Coleus. Some are grown from seeds that I collected last year and some are overwintered cuttings. Click on the photo to see some notes I added on with flickr.

Seedlings and Cuttings

Worm Poop Tea + Lithops

Posted on by

A few weeks ago, my coworker Purr was telling me that she wanted to get some vermicompost (composted worm poop).

Last night, I decided to really read the label of an eco-friendly plant food called Terracycle, that I bought about a month ago. To my surprise, it is made of vermicomposted organic matter. In other word it’s like Worm Poop Tea that you spray on the plant’s foliage or water it into the soil. One thing that attracted me to this product is that they reuse old soda bottles. That’s why some look like Coke bottles and others Pepsi or Aquafina.

PErracycle Plant Food   Lithops

I decided to surprise Purr and get her a bottle to try. As I was looking for it, I saw some Lithops, which were some succulents that I’ve always wanted, so I bought two 2-inch pots. Hmm, maybe this is a start of another collection.

‘Fresh from the Garden’ Premiers

Posted on by

I just found out that one of my favorite garden shows that deals with vegetable gardening, Fresh from the Garden, premiers its third season today (Tuesday). So if you have DIY Network, check out. it’s showing at 4pm PST on DirecTV channel 230.

Here’s a link to this episode’s description. ( Starting a New Garden )

The Coleus are Coming…

Posted on by

I got an email from Rosy Dawn Gardens regarding my Coleus order that I placed last year on December 6.

Dear Customer :

Your order shipped Monday, April 3, 2006 via US Priority Mail. Please expect your package in 1-3 days and make arrangements for it to be placed out of the hot or cold weather as soon as it arrives. Be sure to unpack your order immediately and notify us if there is any damage or problems with your order. Your invoice and arrival care instructions are in the packing slip on the top of the box.

Thanks again for ordering from Rosy Dawn Gardens!

Sincerely,

Glenn and Pam
www.rosydawngardens.com

YEAY!!!!… Hmmm?… It’s still cold outside, I hope I have enough space on my shelves with growlights…

Hi Again…

Posted on by

Every once in a while, things in life gets a little busy and I tend to take a little vacation from my gardening journal.

I’ve also been a little discouraged from gardening because I’m getting so tired of the rains that we have been getting. San Francisco set a record of the most days with rainfall in the month of March. I think it was something like 25 or 28 days total. Adding that to getting home from work after nightfall (around 7:30pm) makes me just want to lay down and sleep or do nothing.

I still haven’t tackled recovering all those gardening shows that I’ve lost from my accidental erasure. I’ll do it once I find a program that can recover those files. I’m just continuing to record what I can and try to build from that. Luckily, most shows I record get replayed throughout the year.

Another thing that has has been discouraging is that most of the vegetables (tomatoes, eggplant, orka and peppers) that I sowed from seeds don’t seem to be doing that well. I think I must have planted way to early, but I guess that’s just part learning. I’ll try to sow more seeds this week, and hopefully those will do better.

Now the encouraging news:

Today, I got home from work and for the first time, it was still daylight!!! I guess Daylight Savings Time has it’s benefits. I just wish it would stop raining and start getting warmer!!!

Although my vegetables aren’t doing well, my Coleus from seeds are doing really well, and few of my them are almost as big as some cuttings.

I’ll write more later… I’m getting a bit tired…

Hours and Hours of Gardening Shows, GONE…

Posted on by

As I was reorganizing files between my external hard drive and my new iMac, I accidentally deleted one of my folders that contained my gardening show recordings :( That probably about 100+ GB (videos take up a lot of hard drive space). After a short panic, I immediately unmounted that drive (so I wouldn’t do any more damage until I can recover) and looked up an way of undeleting (deleted) files.

There goes my hours of Victory Garden, The City Gardener, Rebecca’s Garden, Smart Gardening, Garden Smart and many more, not to mention a few Desperate Housewives, Battlestar Galactica and Lost.

I really hope that I can recover these files. I’m not panicking right now, but even if I recover these I think I’ll be a lot of work. I’ll as my computer savvy coworkers and the I.T. department if they can help.

Middle of the Night Planting + Laundry + Battlestar Galactica

Posted on by

You know some people wake up in the middle of the night and crave something to eat? Well, I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to pot some seedlings from Jiffy peat pellets to plastic cups. These include the following:

– Roma Tomato
– Japanese Long Eggplant
– Coleus Tabasco?
– Coleus Amora?
– Coleus Tilt-a-whirl

I also noticed that the Carex sp. (Ornamental Grass) that I planted on Jan. 31 has sprouted after a month a few days.

I reorganized my two shelves with grow lights to accommodate the new potted seedlings. I also removed all the plants in the aquarium and just placed them on planting trays on the shelves.

I also did two loads of laundry… This just proves that I definitely am a night owl… Now I think I’ll go back to bed and watch this weeks recording of Battlestar Galactica.

Nephew bye-bye + a Little Bit of Gardening

Posted on by

My nephew from Japan left yesterday :( and his 4 kids are back with their mom… so my other nephew from Korea, his wife and his 2 kids are left staying here until Friday. It’s been so much fun with the kids. I got to spend some quality time with them, and they feel closer, considering I’ve only seen them about 3 time before. It was fun wrestling with them and giving them piggyback rides (well, the smaller ones). One of my great-nephews also likes to give me massages which was a real treat.

Today, I was going to pull up the old Brussels Sprouts, but I didn’t feel like doing too much work, so that’ll have to wait.

I ended up dead-heading some of the spent Daffodil flower and pulling up weeds in the front yard.

I also left the seedlings of the Swiss Chard, Chin-Chiang Cabbage, Bok Choy, Lettuces and Sugar Snap Peas out in the back patio after harding them off for the past 2 days. I got tired of bringing them in and out, so it’s pretty much sink or swim for them.