Tag Archives: garlic

Broccoli, Mustard and Elephant Garlic Planted 

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After dinner, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about how to grow Dragonfruits, I have 3 existing varieties, two recently grown from cutting that I acquired and a bunch that I grew from seeds year ago. I’m. Now contemplating where in our garden I can plant the Dragonfruits so they don’t stay small in their pots.

Afterwards, I did some late night planting in the back yard before I got freaked out by mysterious noises.

Broccoli and Mustard Sown

I planted some Calabrese Broccoli and Yanagawa Tanaka Mustard seeds into 3 inch pots which I will divided later (my new preferred method of growing seeds).

Elephant Garlic

I also broke apart an Elephant Garlic that I bought from the grocery and planted the 9 bulblets into 3 inch pots.

Elephant Garlic Broken Up

I’ll plant these out into the garden when they start sprouting a bit. 

Asian Plum & Cherry Graft Progress… and Garlic Planting…

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I was going to start grafting onto our Plum tree, but our neighbor decided to take down part of our shared fence (without telling us) and fix it up…

Plum 'Inca' Graft Progress

So I decided not to graft and just take inventory of the Plum and Cherry grafts that survived. Some grafts didn’t make it, but several seems to have survived:

– Plum ‘Golden Nectar’ (Graft 2012-01)
– Plum ‘El Dorado’ (Graft 2013-03)
– Plum ‘Inca’ (Graft 2011-01)
– Plum ‘Sierra’ (Graft 2011-03)
– Plum ‘Elephant Heart’ (Graft 2009-04) Folia
– Plumcot ‘Burbank’ (Graft 2012-02) Folia
– Pluot ‘Flavor Supreme’ (Graft 2010-04) Folia
– Cherry ‘Merton Premier’ (Graft 2010-01) Folia
– Cherry ‘Burbank’ (Graft 2011-08)
– Cherry ‘Lapins’ (Graft 2009-02) Folia

Sprouting Garlic

The Garlic Folia we harvested last year (but haven’t used) are starting to sprout.

Sowing Garlic Bulbs

I split them apart and planted each bulb into a cell pack. Once they grow a little more and root out, I’ll plant them in the garden.

More Dirt Pot Plantings + Tatsoi & Purple Bok Choy Harvest…

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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.

Spinach 'Bonnie' and Elephant Garlic

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.

Pak Choi 'Purple Choi'

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.

Gai Choi or Tatsoi

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.

Sesame Seasoned Tatsoi and Purple Bok Choy

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.

Cauliflower Rice

Garden Maintenance + Salad Harvest + Spinach and Garlic Planting…

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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.

It Was a Really Busy Garden Day…

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  • 12:24pm I like how Guy Fieri (Guy’s Big Bite) promotes composting kitchen scraps, even if it’s just in a bucket for your houseplants. #
  • 12:45pm Spring Starflower, Snapdragons, Daffodils, Candytuff and Calendula are blooming in our backyard… #
    Spring Starflower  Daffodils  Mini Daffodils  Calendula 'Pacific Beauty'  Candytuff

    • CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE OF MY BUSY GARDENING DAY

Happy Birthday Nanay!!!… Let’s Garden…

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Today is my Mother’s birthday, so I took the day off to do anything she wants to.

We started the day by going to DMV to getting her ID card renewed. When they gave us forms to fill out, I noticed that out of all the clipboard they had, they gave us one that had yellow flowers drawn on it.

DMV Clipboard

Afterwards, we went to the dollar store (I found out it’s actually a 99¢ store) to see if they had new garden stuff. I bought some bulbs ( photo ) , and terra cotta pot and an Elephant Garlic bulb (from the grocery area). I’m actually going to plant the Elephant Garlic and see if they grow. Not bad for 99¢.

When we got home, we just worked on the garden. The Sunflowers ( photo ) in the front yard are dying, so I chopped them down. I had four piles: stalks, seeds for the bird to eat, seeds for next year and stems and leaves for the compost pile.

Four Piles

My brother then came home with two new plants for my Mom. A variegated Raspberry Ice Bougainvillea and a dual colored Thai Delight Bougainvillea.

Raspberry Ice Bougainvillea   Thai Delight Bougainvillea

I sowed some seed:
– Sweet Peas ‘Streamer Mix’
– Mighty Red Oak Lettuce
– Bloomsdale Savoy Spinach

I planted the Snap Peas seedling from the six pack to veggie bed #1, using the Sunflower stalks that I chopped down earlier as support for these.

I also pulled out the dead Sikkim Cucumbers plants and cut the bottom dead leaves off of the Lemon Cucumber and Tomatoes.

Peas

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I haven’t been gardening lately, but I needed to plant the Peas that I sowed about a week and a half ago, before they start getting all tangled up in their six pack containers… so I started digging up part of the soil in my third veggie bed and amended it with potting mix and manure.

Planting Snow Peas

I was planning to build up the walls to this third bed, but haven’t had the chance to, so I temporarily place two layers of scalloped bricks until I can mortar the walls… which won’t be until maybe next spring.

As I was digging up the soil, I found some Garlic that I planted in the Fall of 2004. I thought they all rotted and died because they hardly had any foliage. I recorded this on June 15, 2005. Apparently, they survived.

Found Garlic

Since they are small, I think I will replant them.

Garden Maintenance…

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The Garlic that I planted in the fall has totally failed, so I amended the soil and planted a packet of Tendergreen Bush Beans. I’ve never planted bush bean before, and I’m worried that once the emerge, the pincher bugs are gonna gobble them up.

The Sparkler Radishes that I planted earlier this year has bolted (pic) and didn’t form bulbous roots, so I just pulled them out, chopped it up and put it in the compost bin.

The Gladiolas in the front is starting to bloom. They are so red… I gotta take pictures of them.

The Plums keep dropping their fruits so my mom, placed a tarp under the tree to catch the fruit. I think we’ve harvest like 3 grocery bags full of plum. I’ve brought some to work, and have another batch for tomorrow.

The Grapefruit tree in front have TONS of fruits. Last night my mom picked 2 grocery bag fulls and we brought it to my brother’s house.

I noticed that one of the Strawberry plants sent out another running. I can’t decide if I wanna keep it or snip it of so the energy goes to the berries.