Tag Archives: onions

Garden Transformation

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This morning, I woke up early (for a Saturday). I was looking forward to going to the nursery to see if they had any Cabbage and Lettuce plants.

I first went to Walmart and checked the garden center and found a couple of succulents that I liked. One was a Rock Purslane (Calandrinia spectabilis) that I’ve been looking for for a while now. Who knew that out of all places, Walmart would have it. The second was Pachysedum ‘Ganzhou’ which had a cool color. I’ve been checked the vegetable section and found a 9-pack of Bonnie’s Best Cabbage and Buttercrunch Lettuce.

My name is Joel... and I'm a plant addict.

I then drove to Mid City Nursery to see what they had. I ended up with a few plants including:
– Onions ‘Walla Walla Sweet’
– Cilantro ‘Slo Bolt’
– Flowering Cabbage ‘Red’
– Shasta Daisy ‘Goldfinch’

The owner came up to me and ask if I needed any help. So I asked him why my Kumquat plant has dying branches. He asked if I had it in the ground or in a pot I replied in a pot and he said maybe its not getting enough water. So I’m hoping that his explanation was correct and that my Kumquat doesn’t have a disease.

When I got home, I decided to pull out the Zucchini plants because they were not doing well and it didn’t look like they would produce any more fruits. In its place, I planted Portuguese Kale. I also pulled what pot of Swiss Chard that were also not doing well. I added new compost and planted 6 Buttercrunch Lettuce plants.

I also pulled all my Tomatoes in the Self Watering Rain Gutter Grow System #2.

I think the Tomatoes are done for the year... so I'll be pulling them out and planting Cabbage in its place. The green in the photo is Parsley which are starting to bolt.

I planted the new Cabbage into each pot.

I'm going try to grow Cabbage this year. Wish me luck because I have never had good luck with Cabbage.

In the Square Foot Garden, I planted 2 squares of the Walla Walla Sweet Onions.

Overcast, But Lots of Gardening Done…

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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.

Garden Maintenance + Salad Harvest + Spinach and Garlic Planting…

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It was a really nice day today and I got to do some gardening and maintenance in my front yard veggie garden.

If you didn’t know yet, I’m concentrating most of my vegetable planting in fabric pots (GeoPots, Dirt Pots, Smart Pots, etc.) in our front yard. I experimented late last year with a few GeoPots and the veggies grew really well… some, a lot better than the ones in the back yard Square Foot Garden. I think it’s because there is full sun in our front yard, whereas our back yard gets a lots of partial sun.

Almost all of the Flowering Kale and some of the Mizuna and Mustard were infested with gray Aphids (yuck), so I pulled those plants out, since they were not doing well. Two pots with the Curly Leaf Kale looks really healthy and are starting to get bigger, but I noticed that the young leaves in the center also had the gray Aphids! So I got a pump sprayer filled with just plain water and blasted the Aphids out. I’ll check the Kale in a few days and repeat if I find more Aphids.

I did some maintenace and took out some of the older dead leaves from the Collards, Bok Choy, Lettuces and Onions. I also put some bark chip mulch in the veggie pots that didn’t have any.

I harvested a bunch of greens for a big salad for the family: Romaine, Red Oakleaf and other Lettuces, Mizuna, Curly Leaf Parsley and a few (spicy) Red Giant Mustard. Yumm! We had so much salad and it was so good. I also harvested a few small Snap Peas.

My Mom saves Green Onion bottoms (with root) from the kitchen and later plants them in the garden. We had a few on the kitchen window sill, so I took those and planted them in the empty spots in one of the 7-gallon GeoPot that has Red Onions. I planted carrot seeds in half of the pot back in the fall, but they either didn’t germinate or died. I also realized that I had some Shallots that I purchased a while back and never planted, so I divided those and planted them in the same pot.

As the sun was setting, I planted two 5-gallon fabric Dirt Pots, each with four Spinach ‘Bonnie’ plants. There seemed to be a bunch more space in the pots, so I planted the young Elephant Garlic in cell-packs that I had left over from last year’s fall planting. It was getting dark, so I’ll much these with compost then bark and place the pots in the front yard.

Bunch of Plants Purchased and Potted Up…

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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.