I was reminded that today is February 2012 Bloom Day, so I went through our garden and took photos of everything in bloom. I didn’t have time to process all the photos, but I wanted to post at least one, so I can get the February 2012 Bloom Day Badge on Folia. I’ll update this post when I upload more blooms.
Wow! We just had a 3.7 magnitude earthquake… and it was the first one I’ve felt in years… additionally, I don’t think I ever remembered an earthquake centered in Vallejo.
I was watching TV and the house shook really hard! I was scare and though something crashed into our house, but how could that happen. The first thing I did was run to my Mom in case I had to get ourselves under the table. Glad everything is ok. I don’t think there were report of damage or injuries…
I got a Peachcot scion from a recent CRFG Scion Exchange and was wondering if it can be grafted onto an Asian Plum. I’ve had success grafting an Apricot scion to our Asian Plums, but I know Peaches can’t be grafted to an Asian Plum1.
Anyone know if Peachcot scions can be grafted to an Asian Plum?
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1 Grafting Dormant Deciduous Fruit Scions by Idell Weydemeyer, Golden Gate CRFG
Today I sowed a few seeds:
– Florence Fennel
– Spaghetti Squash
– Black Zucchini
I also potted some seedlings into newspaper pots:
– Bok Choy ‘Fun Jen’
– Bok Choy ‘Joi Choy’
– Swiss Chard ‘Fordhood Giant’
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I woke up this morning and got an email from a local Ace Hardware with a 90% off Valentine’s Day coupon (up to $25), so I went for a visit to see what I can get. I was looking for a power flusher thing, but they didn’t have one, so I kept looking. I found some Slug and Snail Pellets from Whitney Farms that was ok for organic gardening, so I got that with the coupon… It was $24.99 and it rang up $2.50!!! What a great deal!!! Thanks Benicia Ace Hardware!!!
I then headed to Navlet’s Garden Center in Martinez and Concord to search for veggies and I found some:
– Kale ‘Rainbow Lacinato’ (I’ve heard of Lacinato (or Dino) Kale, but now Rainbow)
– Kale ‘Siberian’
– Lettuce ‘Red Romaine’
– Lettuce ‘Wildfire Mix’
– Parsley ‘Triple Curled’
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.
Last week, my Mom showed me that the Asian Plum (near the storage) is starting to bloom.
This Asian Plum tree is always our first deciduous fruit tree to break dormancy… This means that I need to start grafting to it… and I haven’t even sorted the scions that I got this year, so I have to do that soon.
I took inventory of all the grafts that I made on this particular Plum tree and I’m happy that many are still alive. These include:
– Asian Plum ‘Elephant Heart’ (Graft 2009-04) 
– Plumcot ‘Apex’ (Graft 2010-05)
– Pluot ‘Flavor Supreme’ (Graft 2010-04)
– Asian Plum ‘Inca’ (Graft 2011-01)
– Apricot ‘Large Early Montgamet’ (Graft 2011-04)
– Asian Plum ‘Sierra’ (Graft 2011-03)
– Pluot ‘Flavor Queen’ (Graft 2010-02)
It’s kinda neat how this one tree now has Plums, Plumcots, Pluots and Apricots.
Sadly two grafts did not make it:
– Aprium ‘Mark’s Seedling’ (Graft 2010-03)
– Asian Plum ‘Inca’ (Graft 2011-02) which is ok because this was a duplicate graft
I also took some time to prune some on the limb back, especially the ones that hang too low or crossed other branches.
I continued planting more Dirt Pots with veggies for the front yard, but first, I finished the Spinach and Elephant Garlic Dirt Pot (that I started yesterday) by adding bark mulch.
I planted two more Dirt Pots. One with Red Russian Kale and one with Rainbow Swiss Chard that I had left over from late last year’s planting. When I planted the Swiss Chard last year, there were so many seedlings in the cell pack. I only planted the biggest plants, divided the smaller ones left over and planted them into larger cell-packs, hoping they would grow… and luckily they did.
At the end of the day, I harvested the Gai Choy (photo below) and Purple Bok Choy (photo above) that were both starting to bolt. I have a feeling that the Gai Choi seeds I got were packaged wrong, because this actually looks like Tatsoi. I’ll do another planting and see what I get.
In any case, it still makes a good harvest. I saw a YouTube video where this woman made a Korean Spinach side dish, called Sigeumchi Namul. I made this substituting the Tatsoi and Purple Bok Choy for the Spinach.
I also saw another YouTube video of a rice substitute/side dish called Cauliflower Rice. It’s so simple to make. Ingredients is just Cauliflower, salt and pepper.
