Mother's Day: Sunday, May 10

One of these days I'll take a picture with our "real" camera. We've been gone for a week on vacation and the growth in the garden was very dramatic (for me) since I wasn't tending to it daily. Everything has taken off in the week that we were gone.

Zucchini is the large monster plant in the lower right. It gets 9 square feet but I grow some quick crops - like radishes- around it to maximize the use of space.)

The white bowls you see in the upper right are recycled instant noodle bowls with the center punched out for light to come through. They were used to help the Bell Peppers and a few other plants adjust since I planted them direct from grow center into the ground without hardening. This method works VERY WELL!!! I'm extremely please and I'll post something about that in the near future. I may need to distribute these bowls with the plants that I sell next weekend since I'm not sure if I will be able to harden any of them before the sale.

In the lower left corner, there is a single square of green bush beans. The radishes in that square had already been harvested a few weeks prior. I'm saving that corner for the eggplant and peppers that are in the grow center. I think it is about time to move them into the ground soon.

Hanging Strawberry Bags, anyone?

I planted these hanging strawberry bags about a month ago and here they are hanging from our fence. These are green poly-vinyl grow bags that can be used to grow flowers (and strawberries) that I filled with potting soil. There are 8 holes along one side/face of the bag in which I put a strawberry plant in each hole -- and then a ninth plant goes in at the very top (opening used to fill the bag with soil.) Tonight we returned from a week long vacation and found that several plants have started to flower. We will have lots of strawberries this summer!

No Habanero for you!

I was recently contacted by my seed distributor that there were complaints that the Orange Habanero seeds were duds. I looked in the germination chamber and sure enough -- they were! Drat! This means there will most likely NOT be any Habanero Plants for the sale. At least we'll still have Serrano Chili, Cayenne Pepper and Jalapenos.














On another note, the corn kernels I planted last week (exactly last week on Tuesday morning) have emerged! 3 corn seedlings -- and I am waiting for the 4th one to break through. Gosh, I hope he makes it to join his brothers. (Corn plants are boys to me for some reason.)

Our first vegetable in 2009: White tip sparkler radish!

Maybe this is getting a little out of hand?

Actually, I've got it all under control. Almost all of these plants (tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, oh my!) are being grown for a Preschool Fundraiser (date to be determined -- sometime mid-May?) I think that's about perfect timing for our area of San Francisco without having to fret too much about the occasional chilly day/evening. Unfortunately, a lot of the big name stores are already putting out these plants for sale and the temps are NOT quite there yet in most parts of NorCal, at least not for warm weather crops like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. If you're waiting to buy plants to transplant (in NorCal), wait a little longer. There won't be any shortage of transplants to buy at the nurseries.

Status: Sunday, April 5 (21 days later...)

The first seeds went into the ground on March 14. Today, about 3 weeks later, there is visible progress. A point I want to make is that those "DTM" numbers on the seed package, which usually indicates days to mature fruit (or days to harvest) are typically wrong -- I think what they mean is days to maturity from the point the seedlings are above ground or from the point the seedling is tranplanted outdoors. Unfortunately, that first 2-3 weeks waiting for the seedling to emerge does not count!

Albino Pepper Seedling - an abomination?

This is an albino "California Wonder" Bell Pepper seedling that I have been nurturing since March 18. I learned today that it is an abomination that will not survive as it lacks the ability to produce chlorophyll (why most plants/leaves are green.)

And here are its 3 other siblings already outgrowing it. Poor guy; he is doomed.