Busy Gardening Day…

It was a busy gardening day. I started by planting a few Green Onions bottoms with the others I planted last week.

Planting Green Onion Bottoms

I start grafting onto our two Asian Plum trees:
Bubblegum Plum (which I’m really interested in tasting, so I grafted it in two locations)
Plum ‘Golden Nectar’
Pluot ‘Flavor Supreme’

People Watcher

This bird kept watching me as I was grafting scions onto our Plum tree. I thought it would fly away if I moved, but even after I walked around and climbed the ladder, it just stayed there. It eventually flew away.

I wanted to graft some Cherry scions, but I couldn’t find any good sites to graft onto… So I left it, and I’ll check our Cherry tree later.

Planting Swiss Chard, Beets and Mesclun

I had some plant that have been in cell packs since the fall, and they are still alive, so I planted the Swiss Chard into 5 gallon fabric pot and Beets ‘Chioggia’ into a large Daiso pot. I had two leftover Flat Leaf Parsley which I planted into a 3 inch pot for now, until i find a permanent place for them in the garden. Hopefully, these plants will grow big despite being left in their cell packs.

I also did a bunch of seed sowing. I sowed all of the Zesty Salad Mesclun Mix into a medium Daiso pot. I don’t think these grew well in the past and I just wanted to get rid of the seeds.

Sowing Spring Greens/Flowers

I planted the rest into cell packs:
Agrostemma ‘Ocean Pearls’
Agrostemma ‘Milas’
Bok Choy ‘Fun Jen’
Bok Choy ‘Purple Choy’
Kohlrabi ‘Early White Vienna’
Bok Choy ‘Summer Boy’

Kiwi Leafing Out

A couple of the Kiwi plants have started to leaf out. I was worried that they died in the winter at their new location, but they seem to have pulled through. They was a couple dead/dried out branches which I trimmed. The rest of the blue bin where they were was empty, so I decided to plant a row of Super Sugar Snap Peas.

Sowing Sugar Snap Peas

Afterwards, I did a major trim of the European Plum tree in back of our storage. There were tons of dead limbs and limbs that sagged down. I tried to clear the bottom so we had walking space and just get rid of too much of the mass. I think it looks better now and hopoefully will grow better. Unfortunately, the Kirke Blue Plum that I grafted to it dried up.

More Dirt Pot Plantings + Tatsoi & Purple Bok Choy Harvest…

I continued planting more Dirt Pots with veggies for the front yard, but first, I finished the Spinach and Elephant Garlic Dirt Pot (that I started yesterday) by adding bark mulch.

Spinach 'Bonnie' and Elephant Garlic

I planted two more Dirt Pots. One with Red Russian Kale and one with Rainbow Swiss Chard that I had left over from late last year’s planting. When I planted the Swiss Chard last year, there were so many seedlings in the cell pack. I only planted the biggest plants, divided the smaller ones left over and planted them into larger cell-packs, hoping they would grow… and luckily they did.

Pak Choi 'Purple Choi'

At the end of the day, I harvested the Gai Choy (photo below) and Purple Bok Choy (photo above) that were both starting to bolt. I have a feeling that the Gai Choi seeds I got were packaged wrong, because this actually looks like Tatsoi. I’ll do another planting and see what I get.

Gai Choi or Tatsoi

In any case, it still makes a good harvest. I saw a YouTube video where this woman made a Korean Spinach side dish, called Sigeumchi Namul. I made this substituting the Tatsoi and Purple Bok Choy for the Spinach.

Sesame Seasoned Tatsoi and Purple Bok Choy

I also saw another YouTube video of a rice substitute/side dish called Cauliflower Rice. It’s so simple to make. Ingredients is just Cauliflower, salt and pepper.

Cauliflower Rice

Bunch of Plants Purchased and Potted Up…

It started to rain last night and for some reason I felt the need to buy some leafy winter vegetable starts, so I visited Mid City Nursery this afternoon. I didn’t find any leafy vegetables, but I got a six-pack of Walla Walla Sweet Onions which contained about 17 seedlings. I haven’t grew big Onions, so this will be good experience.

I also looked for different colored Carrots and found Blend of Colors Carrot seeds which contains 4 varieties: Cosmic Purple, Lunar White, Solar Yellow and Atomic Red.

I also wanted to try Parsnips, so I got a packet of seeds, but when I got home, I discovered they were not Parnips, but Parsley… actually Hamburg Root Parsley ‘Piestruska’ which seems similar to Parsnips, so these will do. I’m interested in trying them out.

Hmm… This just popped into my head… I just realized that Parsnips kinda sounds like a combination or Parsley and Turnips. I wonder if that’s how it got the name. Although, I think they are from two different families. I’ll have to look that up.

I then visited our local Lowe’s to get some potting soil. I also purchased:
Wallflower sp. (six-pack)
Calendula ‘Calypso’ (yellow with black centers)
Spinach ‘Bonnie’ (2 four-packs)
Collard ‘Georgia Hybrid’ (four-pack)
Asparagus ‘Jersey Giant’ (3 bare roots)

When I got home I potted up a bunch of seedlings (grown from seeds indoor under grow lights) into newspaper pots. These include:
Mustard ‘Crimson Red’
Pak Choi ‘Purple Choi’
California Poppy ‘Mission Belle’
Japanese Chard ‘Umaina’
Swiss Chard ‘Witerbi Mangold’

The Snap Pea ‘Sugar Ann’ seeds that I soaked are just starting to sprout roots, so I planted those into about 22 newspaper pots.