Another Earthquake + Vlog + Repottings…

This morning, I was waken up by another earthquake. It sounded like someone pounded on my bedroom window and shook my loft bed… and since I was up on my loft bed, I thought to myself that I need to get down, just in case. I then saw on the news that it was another 3.7 magnitude earthquake and the epicenter was about at the same location as yesterday’s earthquake; about 6 miles south of us.

I’ve been watching YouTube quite a bit lately and have learned a lot about gardening, sewing, quilting, cooking, DIY projects, etc. There are several YouTubers who I admire and watch regularly… and this got me thinking… Maybe I should make some videos to add to this blog… So later this afternoon, I got out my FlipVideo MinoHD camera which I hardly use, since I don’t really do much video, and gave it a try. I got this camera as a gift for being the employee of the year at my previous job.

My first attempt was just an introduction to my seedlings in newspaper pots sitting in the front yard. I basically, showed my various Bok Choys, Chard, etc. It was though getting into it, but after a while I just kept talking and talking… which was weird, because I felt like I’m talking to myself.

I then shot another video of me transplanting my Daikon seedlings into a Dirt Pot fabric pot. I’m trying an experiment to see if how well Daikons will grow if I sowed them indoors under grow lights until they have sprouted for about 3 day, then hardening them off outside for a day or two. They were a bit leggy, but I buried them deep so the first set of leaves where just above the soil line. I haven’t had any luck growing Diakons in the past and hopefully this method may work, since it’ll be in full sun in the front yard.

I noticed that the volunteer Bells of Ireland plant was all dried up, so I pulled it up and collected its seeds. The bract-like stuff surrounding the seeds were aged and looked like lace… (I can’t think to the word for this process)… Many of the seeds already fell, so we should have some volunteers, but I’ll still plant all the seeds I collected into a 1-gallon pot to winter sow. I’ll transplant them once they sprout and develop a few leaves.

A bunch of plants in pots are in need of a bit of soil replenishing, before they started actively growing. First, I just added compost, azomite and worm castings to a small Daylily ‘Frank Hals’ pot to bring up the soil line.

I then emptied the pot of Orange Bottlebrush Ginger which really needed repotting. The roots were massive and winding around several times. There were two distinct branching of the Ginger corm and I decided to divide it in two. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just pretended it was a Bearded Iris. I cut a majority of the root ends leaving about 4 inches on the corm and broke away the oldest corm segments. I then repotted the two cleaned up corms into a larger 5-gallon pot. I hope this encourages this Ginger to flower. Its only flowered once in the past and I was away, so I didn’t see it.

I found another small pot of a Peruvian Daffodil which I think will benefit with new soil. I dug the bulbs up and there were 5 healthy bulbs all close together. I can’t remember how many I originally started with and I can’t seem to find a record of when I bought these. I spread the bulb apart and repotted them with some added compost, azomite and worm castings.

Overcast, But Lots of Gardening Done…

It was pretty much overcast the whole day but I got a lot done in the garden.

I moved a lot of pots with dead plants (annuals) from the front garden to the container graveyard in the back. I’ll rejuvenate the soil in these pots with compost, azomite, worm castings and the whole bit, when I find something else to plant in them. I moved three pots of Hyacinths which are now blooming to the front as well as the pot of Daffodil ‘Dick Widen’, Tulip ‘Pastel Mix’ and Tulip ‘Queen of the Night’. I don’t think the Tulips will rebloom this year, but there are 2-3 Daffodils that survived and are budded.

I took the water sprayer again and sprayed off the gray Aphids that remain on the Collards, Kale and Brussels Sprouts. There are much less Aphids than before, but a few remain.

We had a dwarf Calamansi tree in a huge pot that died last year and I finally got around to pulling it out (it was actually my Brother’s tree, so I thought he would take care of it). I asked my Mom if I can plant her Pomegranate that’s in a 5-gallon pot in the back yard to this larger pot. I think it’ll do much better here in a larger pot under full sun. I’ll also add a lots of compost, azomite and worm castings in the pot before potting up the Pomegranate. My Mom was complaining that the Pomegranate hasn’t bore fruit, but it’s siblings that she gave my Aunts already had fruits.

I have two 3-gallon pots of Blue Curled Scotch Kale (3 plants in each pot) that are getting bigger, so I think I’ll divide one pot and plant each plant into their own 3-galloon pot. I then had an idea and though of planting some dwarf Snap Peas ‘Sugar Ann’ that I purchased a few days ago around the Kale. I think Kale, being a leafy green, likes Nitrogen… and Snap Peas produce Nitrogen in it’s roots, so maybe they’ll be happy together… Well, we’ll see…

I then planted a 7-gallon Dirt Pot with the Walla Walla Sweet Onions seedlings that I bought a few days ago. I think I got about 11 seedlings into the pot. I had 6 seedlings leftover, so I potted those up into a large 6 cell pack and will plant it in the Square Foot Garden later.

It was getting dark and starting to sprinkle, but I planted two 1-gallon pots with seeds I found. One with the Daylily seeds I found in Mare Island and the other with the Orange Calendula I found at Prusch Park in San Jose. I hope these grow.

Now it’s raining, so I don’t have to water the plants :) That’s a good thing.

Daylilies…

Daylilies
Daylilies in our front yard.
Hemerocallis (Family: Hemerocallidaceae)