I finally found another Smith & Hawkins BioStack Compost Bin for sale on a Craigs List ad. I sent an email out and it was available… so I drove about 45 minutes away in the rain and picked it up in Pleasanton. It came with some extras, was never used and a good deal at $45.
Once I got home from work and MacWorld, I return my videos to the city library and borrowed more books:
– Jeff Cox’s 100 Greatest Garden Ideas by (duh?) Jeff Cox
– Who Named the Daisy? Who Named the Rose? by Mary Durant
– Apartment 3-A Mariposa St. by Fanny A. Garcia (a short book written in Tagalog)
I also got two more videos:
– Yardening: How to Grow & Nurture Seedling
– Yardening: How to Grow Cool-Weather Vegetables
Both in the Yardening series with Jeff Ball
I was able to leave work early to go to the MacWorld San Francisco 2006 Expo. The new Intel Mac look pretty impressive, but I don’t want to get one just yet, since it’s still in it’s infancy. I want iLife ’06 and the new version of EyeTV, though.
After the expo, as I walked over to the casual carpool line, I snapped photos. In addition to plant photos, I also like snapping up numbers, urinals, fire hydrants and street art (i.e. posters, graffiti, stickers, etc.). I don’t really post these photos, but think I should.
My “paid” Flickr account just contains plant and gardening related photos, but I think I will start using it for the above mentioned photos as well as friends, family and work photos, since I don’t want to buy another “separate” Flickr account. I’m going to stew this over and decide later. I’m going to continue to make this LiveJournal mostly plant and gardening specific though, with a few daily life thoughts here and there.
I had some time to kill at work and did some seed shopping online:
I ordered these Asian herbs and veggie at Evergreen Seeds:
– Large Leaf Korean Perilla – Coleus-like Perilla with a unique flavor between mint and basil
– Tia To Vietnamese Perilla – Green color leaves with purplish red on the back
– Red Stripe Leaf Amaranth – Edible large green leaves with red stripes
– All Red Edible Amaranth – Edible all red leaves
– Mino Early Daikon Radish – A long-time Japanese Daikon Radish favorite
– Smooth Beauty Luffa – Light green skinned edible Luffa
– Maiko Garland Chrysanthemum – Edible Asian Greens
– Thai Lemon Basil – Thai Hoary Basil
I also ordered these hard-to-find and usual plants at Amishland Heirloom Seeds:
– Strawberry Spinach – (Chenopodium capitatum) Spinach and Strawberries in one
– Sikkim Cucumber – (Cucumis sativus var. sikkimensis) Cantaloupe-like Cucumber
– Brandywine OTV Tomato – A sub variety of the famous Brandywine Tomato
– Scarlet Chinese Eggplant – (Solanum integrifolium) Miniature Pumpkins-like fruits
– Great White Tomato – Big white Beefsteaks
I’ve been tired and busy lately and haven’t had time to do any gardening, although I stayed up late last night and did some maintenance on the Coleus cutting in my aquarium. There were a few aphids and some type of white bugs, so I took every cutting and brushed them and submerged them in water. I also took the time to give them fresh water and get rid of dying leaves and cuttings. A few didn’t make it, but others are doing fine.
The Coleus ‘Bronze Pagoda’ was getting big and doing well, so I took it to work to make some room in the aquarium.
The Unknown Coleus from Target is also looking strong, so I’m going to pot it up in soil pretty soon and also bring that one to work.
I also ID’ed one of my Coleus, from a flickr user who posted his photo ( link ) in the Coleus group I created. It is called ‘Oompah’.
At work, the ginger is showing it first set of leaves. I also noticed two more ginger sprouts growing on our ginger at home. I’m going to take these to work and pot it in soil.
For Christmas, one of my best friends, Michael, gave me Tulips in this cool little pot. The Tulips are emerging and now about 1 inch tall.
I found this near the area where I found the seedling from a few day ago. I think they are Pine Nuts. Can anyone confirm? I planted them and we’ll see if they grow.
My co-worker’s Zygocactus is dropping its leaves. She was going to throw the broken pieces away, so I yelled “NO!!!”… and she gave it to me. Yet another propagation project.
After work, I passed by Target and saw these Terra Cotta Pots that I thought were cool. They are different than your standard Terra Cotta Pot. They measure 4 inch wide by 3.5 inch tall and cost 79 cents each. (3 cents more than all 600 bulbs my brother got yesterday)
I’m surprised I’ve never seen the succulents in the genus Stapelia until I stumbled upon this photo of it ( link ). I’m adding this to my wish list. Here are two species I found on davesgarden.com that I like:
– Stapelia gigantea ( link )
– Stapelia flavopurpurea ( link )
So if you have any of these and have babies to spare, wanna share with me?