Okra, Freesia & Ranunculus sprouting like crazy

Here is an update about the Okra, freesia & Ranunculus. Spring onion is also coming.. still waiting for the Jalapanoes to come up.

Planting: Ranunculus, Lily of the valley, Freesia, Okra

I am back to planting and growing after a 6 months break. I had to travel and hence had cut down on my garden plants. I handed over the plants that wont survive without care to my sister. My begonias and aleo veras have survived my absence. And now that I am back, I have started working on my small patio garden again.

Though a little late for the season, I have decided to plant ranunculus this year. I have had my eyes on this amazing bulb for quite sometime and have finally decided to take the plunge. I am not expecting flowers but I am hoping that the plant will give out foliage so that I know, if i take care of it properly next year I should have lots of flowers. Well I got about 20 bulbs. I have followed all the proper procedures required for it:

• Soak overnight
• Plant with the bananas facing down
• Water everyday
• the soil/pot is very well drained

So I am hoping that my Ranunculus will show up.

As for Lily of the valley & Freesia, I am not that late. So hopefully I should see some blooms once they start sprouting.

Will Update once they have started sprouting with pictures.

Pink Pinwheel

I am kind of crazy when it comes to things like windchimes, pinwheels, suncatcher etc. I just love them. I cant have enough of them. Well we finally added a pinwheel to our balcony. A sweet cute little one..!! :D

Aleo care

I am starting a strange habit, well stranger than talking to my plants; I have started naming them. I blame the lack of any kind of exciting activity and therefore in hopes to help myself I restarted my Yoga and took up crocheting (which seems to be going on well), Still I find myself staring at the opposite wall of my hall for larger part of the day for this past week. I blame the cloudy-windy and raining weather (though it is more my laziness than anything.)

My one year old Aleo vera plant is showing signs that it needs more sunlight and windy spring is not helping me much. My poor plant is trying its best to send out new shoots. In hopes that it might help, I decided to re-pot it in a bigger and more sandy soil. I had bought it as very tiny droopy thing in deal from Walmart ($1 for Aleo plant in seed starter cup).It has grown greatly in last one year.  Here is a pic of my Aleo vera named Ariel.

Now to the story of the parsley that a friend of my husband's gave me: Well last year I decided to have herb corner in my balcony, I had basil, mint, cilantro  in my herb center. My Husband's friend gave me parsley to add to it  (he was given that plant as a return gift in some party he attended). Well I planted the parsley in spare pot  (a huge one, the only empty one i had then in hand)) and watered but mostly I forgot about it (I do not use parsley in my cooking). Well the dear plant grew quite huge, bloomed and managed to scatter its seeds around the post it was tied to... most of them ended up in the concrete floor below and some managed to land in the soil behind the walls of the balcony. Well the result is here. 

Baby1:

Baby2:

I have finally managed to groom my darling begonias. I have about 2 full pots of red and white begonias and all blooming throughout the year without care. I shall call my begonias: bee (red/pink ones) and belle (white ones)

Additions

 

Harvest

Tomato, Mint and Begonia - Blooming time

 Have found a new organic fertilizer in Home Depot for tomato. It helps in getting really good crop. Also this fertilizer does not have the white spotting side effect that I had with most of the tomato fertilizers. It is also very affordable in terms of cost. & Here's the happy result!!   :)

Flowers and Blooms in my Garden..!! :)

Fruits & Saplings

The 3 developments in my garden. A week of really good sun has brought lot of changes in my gardens. My Jasmine & Hibiscus are flowering so much that I can hardly see the leaves. My seeds have started sprouting and my rose cutting is showing new leaves every other day. For now, I am taking break and enjoying the look of my garden. Of course, the to-do list in my garden is getting long:

• Re-pot the rose cutting in another 1 week (2.5 gallon pot should be good for now)
• Get a horizontal pot for my strawberries so that it can have runners
• Wait for another 2-3 weeks before giving new pots for my saplings
• Harvest tulip bulbs (pretty late already)

That's all from me right now...!! :)

New girls in my garden..!!

The New girls in my garden..!!

My rose plant has started showing new leaves. Time to plant it in a bigger pot..!! Can't wait to see the bright pink flowers next year..!! Pink Hibiscus is the new addition to my Garden. Got it just last week!! Courtesy hubby..! :)

Pink Hibiscus

Scarlet Knight Rose

Growing Onion..!!

Day before yesterday, me and my hubby had the re-potting the plants session. That was when I decided to plant my onion bulb.

I had decided to sprout onion bulb and see how much it can grow. So, for some days I kept it immersed in water with only the head of the bulb poking out. After a week, the bulb started showing small white growth at the head and within 3-4 days, there was rapid growth, small green sprigs began to shown up. March being perfect season for onions, I decided to plant it properly in soil and watch what happens.

This is how it looks right now!! :)

Spring bounty

Being Spring, the first post I can think of writing about is my garden. From the beginning of this month I have found that, I am unable to look away from my garden. I find myself insisting on walks in pouring rain, just so I can have a look at the pink jasmine blooms in the corner house of our street.


From an young age, I grew surrounded by wide variety of plants and trees, hence, it is no surprise for me to fall in love with gardening. Though I don't posses much of green thumb, I am gardener enough to be able to pull off nice flowers during spring and summer, some tomatoes during fall and cilantros at all other times.

Well to make long thing short, my garden is blooming again this spring with nice red tulips, beautiful fragrant Pink Jasmine and simple but gorgeous Geraniums....  Well I have had Pink Jasmine right from last year (it has been growing like weed), while I tried geranium and Tulips this year. 


I planted about 6 Tulips bulbs in beginning of Feb, all of which sprouted and grew to an inch within 10 ten days. Guess the alternating cool and dry weather of San Mateo county helped them a lot. One thing I found about tulips is, they need lot of moisture in soil. So I keep the Tulip pot in a container filled with water, so that they always had direct access to water at all times.


Pink Jasmine is one of the toughest plant and very well suited to California climate. And it also takes the distinction of being the first plant to capture my husband's heart!! Those soft pink fragrant blooms are hard to resist. I planted it last year around March as a young sapling. Within a year it grew to cover one corner of my Patio. I started noticing the tiny dark pink buds at the end of Dec, which continued to grow in to nice pink buds by March. And now my whole plant is covered with aromatic white blooms.


Geranium, it has neither the over powering perfume of pink jasmine nor the seductive and strong coloration of tulips but geraniums are one of those simple beauties that makes us want to keep looking at them. Caring for geranium is pretty easy. They are strong perennial plants. Like Jasmine, they tend to grow very well if provided with the right environment. Lot of sunlight, water and fertilizer.So far I have not had much problem with them.


With summer on its way, I plan to plant  some nice vegetable like Okra, onion and of course the eternal summer favorite tomatoes and cilantros. Thats my tiny garden folks. Hope u enjoyed it..!!See u soon...!! :)