Half Price Plant Sale + New Rain Barrel…

I got a tip from one of John Kohler’s video from growingyourgreens.com that Home Depot was having a half price plant sale… so after work, I took my Mom there… She also wanted to buy a trash can to make into a rain barrel. We got a 44 gallon heavy duty trash can and some PVC fittings for the Square Foot Garden. I also got a few plants for half price:

– 4-pack Black Beauty Zucchini (with 6 plants)
– two 4-pack Sugar Ann Snap Peas
– 2 inch Yellow Straightneck Squash (2 plants)

I’ll divide the Zucchini and Yellow Squash and plant them into larger pots, then give them away to friends and family, keeping about 2 for myself.

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.

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.