Rookie Garden: New Beginnings for 2011 - ALL ABOUT BULBS

Happy 2011 everyone! This new year is a year for new prospects, and now that the weather is warming up here in Southern California, it's time to get planting!!

Since November of last year, I have pretty much neglected my Rookie Garden, except for a little weeding here and there. My day-job had left me little time to tend my garden, plus there was little point to planting things when the weather was so cold. Nothing was sprouting outdoors, and since I was traveling so much for work, starting seeds indoors was futile since my dear hubby would always forget to water them.

But yesterday it was a warm 78-degrees here in San Diego (sorry about the poor weather to the rest of the country) and it was time to clean up the rookie garden and plant some new things! I started out with "a little" weeding. All that green that you see on the concrete there... WEEDS.

This planting session was all about planting bulbs! Last year I had purchased some bulbs from the 99c Store, and decided to give them a try. At a buck a packet, I thought, Why not? Some of them turned out nicely, but some of them are really blooming this year like this Freesia:

And here are some Gladioli bulbs from last year starting to grow shoots!

Since they're looking so strong this year, I decided to give them another try, and I went to the 99c Store once again, and bought a bunch of them! When the cashier was ringing me up, he commented, "Are you planning to get your hands dirty? You're buying A LOT of them!" I smiled as I thought about how lovely my garden will look once all of these bulbs start to bloom.

ROOKIE TIP: When planting bulbs, a nice trick is to store the bulbs in the refrigerator for a week before you plant them. Bulbs generally like having a cold period that helps them go dormant and become stronger.

Here are the bulbs that I planted...

Gladioli

I love these tall flowers. In Chinese, they call these "Sword Orchids." They should be planted at a depth of about 8 inches. You can plant about 4 of them every square foot. They take 60-100 days after planting to bloom, and love full sun.

They were a real success last year in the Rookie Garden. Last year, I got the peach and white varieties, and this year I decided to add to the palette. The Plumtart and Tradehorn are my favorites because they look so bold in color... I really hope they bloom nicely this year.

I planted the gladioli against the wall (see the stone circles depicting the planting locations) since they can grow to be up to 5-ft tall!

Freesia and Asian Buttercups

Freesias are sweet smelling flowers that are symbolic of innocence. They should be planted at a depth of about 5 inches. You can plant about 12 of them every square foot. They generally flower in late spring, and love full sun or partial shade.

The Asian Buttercup is also known as the Persian Buttercup. They should be planted at a depth of about 5 inches. You can plant about 16 of them every square foot. They bloom in early to mid summer, and love full sun or partial shade.

I'm excited about the Freesias since the ones I planted last year are so pretty this year (see yellow freesia pic above), but I'm even more excited about the Asian/Persian buttercups! They just look so pretty! I planted these two flowers together with the freesias in the back and he buttercups in the front. Hope I'll end up with a colorful mass of flowers by late spring!

DRUMSTICKS and MUSCARI/GRAPE HYACINTHS

Drumsticks should be planted at a depth of about 5 inches. You can plant about 5 of them every square foot. They generally flower in mid-summer, and love full sun.

The Grape Hyacinth should be planted at a depth of about 5 inches. You can plant about 16 of them every square foot. They bloom in early to mid spring, and love full sun or partial shade.

These were some of the more peculiar looking bulbs that were available at the 99c Store, so I just had to get them!

I had no idea what "Drumsticks" were, but a quick search on the internet showed that these are a type of onion plant. In fact, "Allium" is the onion genus, and in Latin, means "garlic." This makes sense because the flowers of onions and chives look very similar, kind of purplish and bulbous. Overall, people seem to be happy with this flower as it is easy to grow, and it attracts birds and bees.

The grape hyacinth, or Muscari, is also strange looking, at least in the picture on the package. Another quick search on the internet shows that the grape hyacinth is not really a hyacinth at all, but a member of the lily family. Aside from the strange looks, part of the reason I bought them was because the name reminds me of the character Hyacinth Bucket from "Keeping Up Appearances," one of my favorite shows ever! I think Ms. "Bouquet" would be very proud of this.

Right now there are several bare spots in my Rookie Garden, mostly from taking the old annuals out and putting these new bulbs in. I'm not sure at all how these will turn out in the Spring, but that's all a part of the adventure and excitement of a Rookie Garden!!

A Small Break from the Rain

It has been raining and raining and raining for the last two weeks!! My goodness. And it's raining again today. BUT, at least it didn't rain over the weekend, which gave me a moment to actually enjoy the outdoors and run a 5K for charity.

Rain sucks, especially when you're a spoiled San Diegan like me that basks in near perfect weather most of the year. But here's what doesn't suck about rain:
- There's a drought in SoCal, so we can definitely use the water
- You can turn the sprinklers off and save on your water bill
- Your plants get a nice deep watering for the year (including all those blasted weeds)
- Your grass gets nice and tall!

Especially that last one...the grass being tall. Because it's been raining so much this month, the boy next door has not been over to mow the lawn, and it is as long as it's been since we moved into this house. Plus, all the brown patches have really greened up!! Look at it!

Vegetable Bounty

I've finally came to terms with the fact that I need to pick my vegetables. They've been sitting on the plants for a while now, and I've been hoping that they'd ripen even more, but I think that they have reached their peak. If I wait any longer, I won't be able to enjoy them. So today, I picked most of my bell peppers (including one mutant pepper), a few tomatoes, a cucumber, and a couple of okra. I'll probably bring some of these peppers to my mom tonight so she can make some of her awesome stuffed peppers.

Here's my tiny okra:



And a Mutant Pepper!! It's like a little one trying to emerge from the big one! Just like the mutant tomato in my last blog entry!

I'm so sad that summer is coming to an end. My garden will take a little rest soon, and it'll be time for focus on winter vegetables! Stay tuned!!

MUTANT TOMATO!!

Look at what I found in my garden today.

To the casual onlooker, this looks like an ordinary, lovely garden tomato.



By a closer look reveals-- EEK!


A MUTANT TOMATO!!





This reminds me of those stories of a baby absorbing its twin in the womb, except in this case, it looks like the twin is trying to emerge from it.





I have no idea how this happened, but I'm looking forward to eating it! :)

Good Bugs vs Bad Bugs

Summer has suddenly decided to appear in San Diego (a little late, in my opinion) and bugs are rampant! Just this morning I went water my plants and found that my basil had been ALL eaten up overnight!!!

And the nerve of whatever it was that ate my plants to leave droppings all over the floor:

And then I found this hungry little guy in my flower bed...

Rookie Tip: A highly diluted soap solution will help get rid of aphids. My friend Rebecca also says that a cayenne pepper solution will work with garden pests.

However much to my delight, I also spotted my first praying mantis in my garden! YAY! I had bought a praying mantis egg sac months ago and wasn't sure if it ever hatched, but I guess it did! This one is about 1 inch long, so it's still a baby! I hope it helps with some of the pests in my garden...

Rookie Tip: Praying mantises will eat all sorts of bugs in your garden, but also know that they can eat the beneficial bugs as well. Regardless, they're fascinating to have in your garden!

Right now for me, I have some many non-beneficial insects in my garden like beetles, flies, aphids, and caterpillars, that I think this little one will have plenty to feed on. I just hope I don't accidentally throw him away when I'm pruning my garden!!

My Garden - 5 months later

Thought I'd give everyone a look at how my side garden looks 5 months after my baseline entry. To remind you all, here's how the Rookie Garden looked in March 2010:

With a lot of sweat, blood, and tears--- well, mostly sweat... and achy hands, it has since been cultivated to look as it does today. A few weeks ago, I covered the bare spots with wood chips, and it really finished the area up.

*ROOKIE TIP: Wood chips are great for your garden not only because they look nice, but they also help to retain moisture, prevent weeds from growing out of control and some types will deter deer (I think cedar wood chips help with that).

I'm so proud of how my garden looks today!!

From the other end:

Sorry the pics are fuzzy... took them with my phone camera. You can click on the picture to see a higher resolution version. I'll have to take some detailed before and after pictures to compare how everything looks now in relation to my very first blog entry.

I've really learned a lot in the last 6 months and continue to learn... Here are some pictures from other areas in my garden:

And look! Siamese cucumber twins!!! Can't wait to eat that one! =)

Thanks for visiting!!!

HOLY MOLY!!!

I got home today after a week of business travel. My hubby's been gracious enough to water my plants everyday while I've been gone, and I was so happy to see that my plants were doing really well when I got home. I went to check out my Italian squash plants and, HOLY MOLY! Here's what I found!!

These were more like Italian Stallion Squash!

I don't know what the hubby did, but WOW!!

Needless to say, we'll be eating lots of squash this weekend. :)