Tag Archives: kale

Valentine’s Shopping…

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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’

Overcast, But Lots of Gardening Done…

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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.

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.

Kale Chips + Sauteed Kale Stems + Massaged Kale Salad…

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I love Kale Chips and made a batch yesterday. I didn’t have much Lemons, so I used some freshly squeezed Kalamasi juice which worked as well.

Kale Chips

I had a lot of stems left and I didn’t want to waste them, so I sliced them thinly, boiled them until tender, then sauteed it in Olive Oil with Red Onions, Garlic and some Sesame Oil. It turned out pretty good…

Sauteed Kale Stems

I was surfing the web and discovered another Kale recipe that I would love to try called Massaged Kale Salad. It’s made by Aarti Sequeira (winner of last year’s Food Network Star). Click the link below to watch a video of her make the salad.

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Lots of Gardening Done Today…

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Went to a couple nurseries and big-box home improvement stores looking for 1/4 inch drip irrigation tubing with emitters spaced 6 inches apart. I didn’t find any but got a couple of plants.

New Plants from Mid City Nursery

I got the following from Mid City Nursery:
– Celery Folia 6 cell-pack (I’ve never grown Celery, except for the Asian Leaf types)
– Red Russian Kale Folia 6 cell-pack
– Tree Collard Folia 4 inch pot with 2 plants which I later divided into two pots Flickr
– Coleus ‘Dark Star’ Folia
– Coleus ‘Big Chief’ Folia

I also bought a bag of Bonsai Mix which I will try making some String Balls planters with.

As I putting things away in the patio, I found a box that contained Gladiolus, Dahlia and Asiatic Lily bulb/tuber/corms that my brother bought at clearance a month or two ago. They were not in good condition, but I thought I would go ahead and plant them just incase I can save them.

Asiatic Lily 'Stargazer'

The plants included:
– Asiatic Lily ‘Stargazer’ Folia
– Dahlia ‘Heat Wave’ Folia
– Gladiolus ‘Wigs Sensation’ Folia
– Gladiolus ‘Pastel Mixed’ Folia

More Winter Veggies Sown…

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I sowed a few seeds:

Sown Winter Seeds

– Kale ‘Dinosaur’ Folia
– Kale ‘White Russian’ Folia
– Kale ‘Dwarf Blue Curled’ Folia
– Bok Choi ‘Joi Choi’ Folia
– Mustard ‘Miike Purple Giant’ Folia
– Swiss Chard ‘Bright LIghts’ Folia
– Swiss Chard ‘Fordhook Giant’ Folia
– Cilantro Folia
– Fennel Folia

More Winter Veggies Sown + Sprouting Agrostemma…

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I sowed more Winter Veggies into Jiffy Peat Pellets (4 each):
– Flowering Kale Folia
– Bok Choy ‘Joi Choi’ (2010-2011 Batch 2) Folia
– Mustard ‘Broad Leaf’ Folia
– Misome Folia

More Winter Veggies Sown

I also sowed some Lettuce and Mesclun into cell-packs with vermiculite:
– Lettuce ‘Mightly Red Oak’ Folia
– Lettuce ‘Marvel of Four Seasons’ Folia
– Lettuce ‘Prizehead’ Folia
– Mesclun ‘Zesty Salad Mix’ Folia

Lettuce and Mesclun Sown

A few weeks ago, I left some dried Agrostemma Folia seedheads outside and forgot to collect the seeds. With our recent rain, they got wet and started to germinate, so I took some of the sprouts and planted them in 4″ pots.

Agrostemma Sprouting

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