Saturday Plant Sale…

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Early this morning I went to the San Francisco Botanical Garden Plant Sale with my friend Howard. I purchased a Sempervivum and a type of Crassula. I’ll have to check on the names later.

I also snapped some photos, but left my camera at Howard’s condo… ARGH!… I feel weird without my camera… It’s funny how it’s become a part of me.

When I got home, I noticed that there are about 5 tiny specks of green in my Lithops container. YEAY!!!… Little baby Lithops being born, 3 days after sowing.

I also noticed one of the 12 Japanese Long Purple Eggplants sprouting. It’s been 13 days since I sowed this, so maybe the seeds are not viable… (Pause)… I just checked the seed packet and it was packed for 2003, so they are probably old… I’ll have to plant more of the newer seeds. (I don’t know why I didn’t do this in the first place?)

Garden progress:

Recent blooms: Peaches, Sparaxis Tricolor, Tulip

About to bloom: Italian Plums, Persimmons

Not doing well: some Carnation cuttings, Orange Grafted Cactus

Bugs on the Swiss Chard

We’ve been having weird weather. Last weekend was sooooo hot, reaching the low 90s on Sunday. Throughout the week it’s been getting cooler and cooler, then this weekend, we got rain again. It’s actually not bad’ it’s kinda nice not having to water outdoors.

Before it rained today, I was cutting down more of our bolting Swiss Chard (in vegetable bed #1), because I want to fix it up and start my vegetable garden. At the same time, Calli was running around exploring the back yard and my oldest brother came to visit and was pulling out the Peach leaves with Peach Leaf Curl.

As I was pulling up the Swiss Chard, I found a whole bunch of bugs. There was a couple of Ladybird Beetle larvae, which I relocated to our aphid stricken Italian Plum tree.

Swiss Chard   Ladybird Larvae

Soldier Fly?   Unknown Bug

I think the left photo above is a Soldier Fly, but I’m not sure. If you click the photo and view the large version, you can see the details of its purple and blue eyes. It has an interesting pattern.

As for bug on the right… I don’t know what that bug is, but I’ve seen them in our Persimmon Tree. They are slow moving and very very shy. This one was very good at hiding from the camera. I’m surprised I got a photo of it.

I can’t wait to get the lens I ordered on Friday. I also got myself a 10x Macro Lens which I hope will give me more detail with photo like above.

Back to daily postings :)

I returned some library books and checked out two more:

– Sunset Pruning Handbook
– Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening

Recently we’ve been harvesting a lot of pears, peaches and prunes. Today I harvested more Sweet 100’s and Lemon Cucumbers.

Italian Prunes

I also planted four types of seeds into newspaper pots: Grand Rapids Lettuce, Calabrese Broccoli, Catskill Brussels Sprouts and Jewel Mixed Colors Nasturtium.

The seeds I planted on the 12th are doing well and I thinned them down to a couple few.

I had a few failures though… The Correnta Hybrid Spinach I planted on the 13th, looked well, but when I transplanted them a few days ago, they just died :(… Also, the Ginger rhizomes that I tried to root on the 12th got moldly and shriveled up :(…

Sunday Gardening…

Sunday, July 10

Early this morning, I harvested my first cucumbers and eggplant. The huge cucumber in the photo is labeled as Yellow Submarine Cucumber. It hasn’t turned yellow as the tag shows, but that thing is 10 inches, but the tag says 8 inches, so I decided to go ahead and harvest it.

Yellow Submarine Cucumber, Lemon Cucumber, Hungarian Sweet Wax Pepper, Millionaire Japanese Eggplant

Fay Elberta Semi Dwarf Peach

The Sweet 100 Tomatoes are really to harvest, but I’ll do that tomorrow.

Our pruning shears are a bit dull, so I sharped them with a sharpening stone, and they work so much better. I don’t think they ever have been sharpened.

I repotted the Avocado that I “discovered” we had (see yesterday’s post). My mom kindly gave the plant to me :)

I took some pictures around the garden…

Tropic White Guava

Alstroemeria seed pods

Sun shining through a Canna Lily leaf and a close up the flower

Saturday…

This morning I did a lot of weeding in the vegetable beds. I pulled out the spent Snap Peas and the bolting Lettuce. I also cut away the dead or dying leaves on the bottom part of the Cucumbers and Tomatoes.

Bolted Lettuce

The Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans and Tendergreen Bush Bean are both doing well. They are actually growing better than the Bataw that my mom transplanted.

My grandma, aunts, uncle and cousin came by and came over in the afternoon and we all gathered in the garden checking out the plants and picking fruits (pears, peaches and plums).

I potted the Coleus “Pineapple” and “Copper Splash” cutting which I took on the 27th. It took about 12 days for these to root. I also took cutting of Coleus “Wild Lime (mistagged)” and “Gay’s Delight”.

In the front yard, I cut down the spent Gladiola stalks and removed all the dead leaves off the Yucca which has grown so big.

All in all, I think I collect six 5-gallon pots full of leaves and spent flower for the compost pile.