How to be a Gardener…

I discovered a great BBC gardening series on YouTube (uploaded by MrGrizzerBear) that I never heard of before called How to be a Gardener. I haven’t watched all the episodes, but I really like the first one I saw which was Episode 7 “The Productive Garden“. It showed vegetable gardening throughout the year. I created a playlist with the eight episodes so I can find them easily.

Ungrafted Scions and Cloning/Rooting Fruit Trees Cuttings?

I’ve been busy and haven’t been able to work in the garden as much as I want to. I especially haven’t grafted as much as previous years and I still have a bunch of scions that I got earlier this year from the CRFG Scion Exchange. Some may be too late to graft like the Cherries, Plums, Peach and Nectarines because our trees have already bloomed. The Pears are blooming now and I think those may be a little late to graft, although still maybe possible. Apples are the only fruit trees that haven’t bloomed and I can still graft those soon.

I happened to see a YouTube video where someone showed how to clone a pear tree. I’ve never thought of rooting fruit tree cuttings like Peaches, Pears, Apples, etc… I don’t know why I never thought of this… so I think I will try to root the remaining scions I have left and see if they will take root and grow… and maybe I can use them next year for grafting.

Has anyone rooted Peaches, Nectarine, Plums, Apricots, Pears and Apples from cuttings?

Another Earthquake + Vlog + Repottings…

This morning, I was waken up by another earthquake. It sounded like someone pounded on my bedroom window and shook my loft bed… and since I was up on my loft bed, I thought to myself that I need to get down, just in case. I then saw on the news that it was another 3.7 magnitude earthquake and the epicenter was about at the same location as yesterday’s earthquake; about 6 miles south of us.

I’ve been watching YouTube quite a bit lately and have learned a lot about gardening, sewing, quilting, cooking, DIY projects, etc. There are several YouTubers who I admire and watch regularly… and this got me thinking… Maybe I should make some videos to add to this blog… So later this afternoon, I got out my FlipVideo MinoHD camera which I hardly use, since I don’t really do much video, and gave it a try. I got this camera as a gift for being the employee of the year at my previous job.

My first attempt was just an introduction to my seedlings in newspaper pots sitting in the front yard. I basically, showed my various Bok Choys, Chard, etc. It was though getting into it, but after a while I just kept talking and talking… which was weird, because I felt like I’m talking to myself.

I then shot another video of me transplanting my Daikon seedlings into a Dirt Pot fabric pot. I’m trying an experiment to see if how well Daikons will grow if I sowed them indoors under grow lights until they have sprouted for about 3 day, then hardening them off outside for a day or two. They were a bit leggy, but I buried them deep so the first set of leaves where just above the soil line. I haven’t had any luck growing Diakons in the past and hopefully this method may work, since it’ll be in full sun in the front yard.

I noticed that the volunteer Bells of Ireland plant was all dried up, so I pulled it up and collected its seeds. The bract-like stuff surrounding the seeds were aged and looked like lace… (I can’t think to the word for this process)… Many of the seeds already fell, so we should have some volunteers, but I’ll still plant all the seeds I collected into a 1-gallon pot to winter sow. I’ll transplant them once they sprout and develop a few leaves.

A bunch of plants in pots are in need of a bit of soil replenishing, before they started actively growing. First, I just added compost, azomite and worm castings to a small Daylily ‘Frank Hals’ pot to bring up the soil line.

I then emptied the pot of Orange Bottlebrush Ginger which really needed repotting. The roots were massive and winding around several times. There were two distinct branching of the Ginger corm and I decided to divide it in two. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just pretended it was a Bearded Iris. I cut a majority of the root ends leaving about 4 inches on the corm and broke away the oldest corm segments. I then repotted the two cleaned up corms into a larger 5-gallon pot. I hope this encourages this Ginger to flower. Its only flowered once in the past and I was away, so I didn’t see it.

I found another small pot of a Peruvian Daffodil which I think will benefit with new soil. I dug the bulbs up and there were 5 healthy bulbs all close together. I can’t remember how many I originally started with and I can’t seem to find a record of when I bought these. I spread the bulb apart and repotted them with some added compost, azomite and worm castings.

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

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

Begonia Leaf + Things I Didn’t Know About Begonias…

I took a broken leaf from my Auntie’s Begonia. It’s from a tuberous-type Begonia with double white and red flowers. I’m hoping that I can grow a baby plant from this leaf.

Begonia Leaf

As I was searching Flickr and YouTube for information on how to propagate a Begonia from a leaf cutting, I discovered that some (or maybe all) Wax and Tuberous Begonias are edible. Now I have to try the one’s we have.

Below is a YouTube video from EatTheWeeds that explains how to eat them.

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Alicia Merrett…

I just happened to stumble upon the contemporary art quilter Alicia Merrett on YouTube and watched her tutorials about sewing curvy lines. I use to think that they were hard to sew (i.e. making the edges match)… but after watching her, it actually doesn’t look so complicated. I want to try it myself and I think I’ll use this techniques for the Rossie’s Kelp/Brunkrissla Remix Quilt (Quilt 02) that I’ve been thinking about doing.

I also did a search on Google and found her website, www.aliciamerrett.co.uk, which show some beautiful contemporary quilts. I especially like her Mapping Earth and Mapping Earth 2 Quilts on the Mapping and Recording gallery page.

Here are the three video I watched:
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Duran Duran – Girl Panic (Solarstone presents Smashing Atoms Remix)


Duran Duran latest single (remixed): Girl Panic (Solarstone presents Smashing Atoms Remix)

Party Rock is in the House Tonight…

Earlier today, I played this video for my friend Janet, since we kept singing it throughout the day. It’s one of those songs that just makes you want to move. In fact, I got up and started shuffling like they did… and I was WINDED about 1/3 of the way… which reminded me how out of shape I was…