Garden Maintenance + Salad Harvest + Spinach and Garlic Planting…

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.

Weekend Gardening… Stinky-Stinky!…

Saturday, June 10, 2006

I didn’t do any gardening, but took a few photos in the garden.

The Avocado that we found sprouting in the compost bin last year has survived the winter outside very well. I didn’t realize how much it has grown in 11 months. I’ll have to repot this into a 5 gallon pot soon.

One Year Avocado

My Mom harvested the Shallots she planted a while back, but the bulbs didn’t get too big. They were growing in a mostly shaded area and the soil needed to be amended badly. We are going to replant the smaller bulbs in the newly amended veggie bed under much more sun. Hopefully that’ll make a big difference.

Shallots

She was telling me that she loves these either chopped up with tomatoes and added to fried fish, or pickled with Garlic, Carrots, Green Papaya and Labanos (Diakons/Radish).

Later in the afternoon, we went shopping at Target, the Filipino Grocery Store, Food for Less and the 99¢ store. At the 99¢ store I got a grafted Cactus that was starting to flower and my Mom got a bunch of six Lucky Bamboo both for 99¢.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

I did a bunch of this and that on Sunday.

I sprayed the Roses, Snapdragons and Dahlias with half and half solution of skim milk and water. Hopefully, this will deter black spots and mildew or rust (I forgot which one).

I also sprayed almost everything’s leaves with fish fertilizer. Stinky-stinky!!!! Note: remember to close your windows if you spray your plants with fish fertilizer!

We had more Taro and Ginger sprouting in the kitchen, so I planted those in six-packs.

I emptied the one-galloon pots that had Caladiums from last year, which all died… but I found tons of earthworms which I relocated to veggie bed #1.

Earthworms

The Cucumbers were getting too big for the 12-pack Mini Greenhouse, so I transfered them to 4 inch pots, because I haven’t finished the other veggie beds.

I continued to work on veggie bed #2, but I still have to finish one of the side, which has Breaded Iris and Chocolate Mint growing against it. I think we also have some Hyacinth bulbs there which I have to dig out carefully.

I planted another Coleus pot with ‘Saturn’s Rings’, ‘(Mislabled) Show & Tell’, ‘Burnt Sienna’ and Heuchera ‘Amber Waves’.

Late, but…

I took a day off of work today to bring my mom to a doctor’s appointment. Before we left, I had the chance to check out the back garden, which I hardly get to see in daylight since the days are so damn short.

I turned the compost in our new Smith & Hawkins BioStack Composter, which I won at a city composting workshop, and can definitely feel the heat being generated. I want to get another one, so if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to get rid of yours, I’ll take it.

Compost bin photo