Mangosteen

This evening, me and some friends bought a bag of fresh Mangosteen at an Asian market at the Ranch 99 Shopping Center in El Cerrito. (I forgot the name of the shop). I don’t recall ever having Mangosteen, so I was really curious to see what it taste like… plus, I wanted to get seeds to try to plant.

I was surprised at how thick the skin was and how hard they were to open… but once opened, they smelled good. I don’t know how to describe it; kinda tropical fruity. The texture of the fruit inside was kinda jelly-like, like a Lychee or Longan. It even tasted similar to a Lychee or Longan. It was pretty good :)

I saved the seeds and will try to plant them in the spring.

Mangosteen

Chilean Guava…

I saw this article about Chilean Guava and decided that I must get one.
Chilean Guava — why doesn’t everyone have one of these?

Official Start of My Fall/Winter Garden…

I haven’t been gardening much during the summer, but on Saturday, I made a point to get my butt to Mid-City Nursery to see if they had any fall/winter vegetables to plant. They had a lot of variety of cool weather plants and I ended up with three kinds of Kale plants, a White Alpine Strawberry and Brussels Sprouts in my cart.

When I was at the counter, the cashier asked if I found everything okay. I reply yes… then remembered that I wanted a Chilean Guava plant, so I asked if they carried it. She actually knew what it was because she called it Ugni (its genus). She then lead me to the shrubs area and found the plant right away. There was one left and it’s now mine :)

When I got home I took photos of the plants, but I haven’t uploaded them to my Mac yet, so those are still to come.

Can’t wait to start planting!!! :)

Spring/Summer 2009 Garden Plan (v01)

Spring/Summer 2009 Garden Plan (v01)

I really need to start planting my Summer veggies, so I drew up a preliminary plan. I will think this over and probably move things around, but I think I have most of my veggies accounted for. I will probably either buy more plants or sow more seeds to plant in the blank spaces.

click for a long list of plants

Hippeastrum ‘Apple Blossom’

Hippeastrum 'Apple Blossom'

First Hippeastrum (Amaryllis) bloom. I grow these outside, so they bloom much later than ones forced to bloom during Christmas time.

Off to Vacation…

I’m off to a vacation with my three friends Howard, Bill and Dave to Southern California to visit our friend Rachel who is having her Bat Mitzvah.

I started waking up early, but before leaving home, I quickly planted some seeds. I figured that they’ll have a four day heads start if I sowed them now than if I sowed them when I return. I planted Coreopsis ‘ Plains (Bicolor)’, Yu Choy ’50 Days’, Broccolu Raab and Misome into Jiffy Peat Pots… my first time using this medium. I placed them into a propagation tray with a plastic lid (mini-greenhouse) and once I see sprouts, I’ll start hardening them off and bring them outside.

We left the Bay area around 11am and the weather was not bad, but after a hour or so it started pouring rain. At times, I think it was hailing, but most of the time it was sprinkling.

After a few hours driving, we stopped at San Luis Obispo at get some gas and some lunch at Burger King. It’s funny, because I saw a Bottlebrush Bush–I think that’s what they are called–at the Burger King parking lot and upon close examination, found what I think are seeds. So, knowing me, I collected some…

We continued driving and the weather got better. We drove on 101 because we heard that Interstate 5 required chains because of snow. The drive is longer, but I must say the views are nice, especially once we got to the Ventura/Channel Island area. We could see the Pacific Ocean and it was beautiful.

Some things I observed on the road was that there were lots of wild Prickly Pear Cactus and Agave along the freeway. There were also many Orange Orchards and I think we past by a place called Monrovia. I don’t know if that’s where the plant grower Monrovia is located, but I did see a lot of greenhouses and plant growers along the highway.

We encountered the evening commute around the LA area, so we were in stop and go traffic and it was bad. I was driving at this point and I hated it. My hands were sweating since it was stressing me out just a bit. We finally reached our destination around 9 or 10pm, checked into our hotel room then grabbed a bite to eat. Afterwards, we headed to bed and I checked my email, updated my Facebook and all that stuff.

New African Violet Flower Buds…

The African Violet that a coworker gave me is starting to produce new flower buds. Heidi was right, this seems to be a hardy African Violet.

New African Violet Flower Buds.

Saintpaulia (Family: Gesneriaceae)

Cymbidium Blooms…

My Mom was excited that her Cream/White Cymbidium Orchid just started to bloom. I don’t believe they bloomed last year.

These are kept outside in our back patio.

Cymbidium Blooms

Cymbidium (Family: Orchidaceae)