I’ve had some readers/friends ask a few questions that I thought would be interesting to put in a post so here goes…
Can I prune my hydrangeas now?
Hydrangeas look terrible this time of year so it is tempting to start hacking away. WAIT! The kind of hydrangea that we typically see in SoCal blooms on old wood from the previous year’s growth so the optimal time to prune your hydrangeas would be in the early summer. By the end of July flower buds are starting to come out so if you prune you will be cutting off the future flowers. Having said that, if you really feel the need to do some pruning, keep this info in mind and have at it. Every rule is meant to be broken and if you prune thoughtfully you might be able to have the best of both worlds – tidy bush and flowers next season.
Can I still plant sweet peas?
The nice thing about living in SoCal is that we have a lot of leeway in planting times because of our mild weather. With other unpredicable factors like rainfall, heatwaves and who knows what else, my philosophy is GO FOR IT! I’ve got sweet peas blooming right now that I planted in October. The interesting thing is that I planted two kinds, the early flowering variety and regular sweetpeas. Theoretically, the early flowering sweetpeas are the ones that should be blooming right now, but it is the regular sweetpeas that are going crazy. It smells SO GOOD in the early morning when I walk out the front door! On the other hand, the early variety is still growing slowly so we won’t see flowers for a while longer. Go figure! Anyway, if I was to plant some more sweetpeas now, I would start seeds in a protected area in starter trays and transplant them when they are about 6 inches high. Local nurseries might carry starter packs so that would speed up the process if you can find them already started so keep an eye open when you make a nursery run.
Master Gardener Spring Home Gardening Seminar
This year’s Master Gardener Spring Home Gardening Seminar is scheduled for March 27th and will be held at USD again this year. The speaker line-up is really great and I heard yesterday that there will be heirloom tomatoes for sale at the seminar that aren’t readily available elsewhere. If you haven’t gone to these seminars before you are missing out. It’s a great day of hanging out with fellow gardeners and the knowledge base of the instructors is really strong. For information and registration go to the Master Gardener website. Classes fill up quickly so don’t wait!!!
Tagged as:
hydrangeas,
master gardener seminars,
Planting,
Pruning,
sweet peas
So, the potatoes I ordered finally arrived. I’m not sure what I was expecting but they look like….well, potatoes. It was a little anticlimatic when I opened the box, because I spent about $35.00 for this little pile, which I was happy to do, but I think I’m just having a problem with having spent $35 on potatoes that look just like what I can buy at the grocery for a fraction of the cost. Having said that, I know that these potatoes, known as seed potatoes, are much less likely to be problematic because they are typically grown in a controlled environment, keeping them disease free.
Don't cook these for dinner!
I’ll give these little, expensive, starchy jewels a shot to see how they perform, but I’m curious to see how these and my supermarket crop will compare.
Here is some other useful info that came with my seed potatoes:
* Sprouting your seeds is called “greening” or “chitting.” Potatoes don’t have to be sprouting to be planted, but it does speed up the growing process and you tend to get a higher yield.
* During warmer weather, you can sprout your potatoes by spreading them out in moderate light and mild temps (60-70 degrees) for a couple of weeks to induce sprouting.
* During colder weather (now) you can sprout potatoes by placing them in a paper bag in a warm room (70 degrees) with apples, bananas or onions, which give off ethylene gas. This induces sprouting.
* If you don’t want to plant right away, put your potatoes in a paper bag and refrigerate for up to 4 weeks, then follow the chitting directions for warmer weather above.
* Expect your crop to be ready in about 50-60 days, maybe a little longer in cooler weather.
* Subsequent tubers from your original seed potatoes can develop disease, especially if you are reusing your soil so good practice is, if you are growing in containers, to replace the soil you grow your potatoes in after each planting. If you are planting in the ground, then rotate your potatoes out for 3 years. I don’t know about you, but crop rotation is a bit tricky in my smallish yard so I’ll stick to container potato growing.
Here is an informative video from You-Tube if you’ve got 9+ minutes to kill. (It’s amazing what I find when I do a search on Google!!!)
Okay, enough with the potatoes today. More to come when I plant. In the meantime, “chitting” is in order….
Tagged as:
chitting,
Planting,
potatoes,
vegetables
I have tried strawberry pots in the past but never really got a decent crop which I attributed to poor design of the pots. They didn’t get enough water at the bottom and near the top, the dirt would get washed out so in the end I had a pot of dried out or washed out plants that would be stunted. An exercise in frustration to say the least. So why, I ask, did I feel compelled to buy two more pots a few months back? The price was really good and it was a weak moment, but then I had to face the error of my ways and make a plan. I harvested strawberry plants that had sprouted from my compost bin and planted the two pots. I’m experimenting with a way to get more water into the center and bottom of the pot for all over watering without washing the plants out. I put a plastic pot with drain holes at the bottom to irrigate the hard to reach spots. So far, so good. It would be nice to have an ongoing crop of strawberries.
Strawberry pots experiment
Tagged as:
fruit,
Planting,
strawberries
Faithful reader, Jessica, started her seeds last week and now that they are beginning to sprout, she wants some guidance on how to proceed, so here goes…. Make sure your seedlings stay moist. If they dry out you’ll lose them, or weaken them significantly. When you plant a seed, the first leaves to emerge are [...]
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Planting,
Seedlings,
transplating,
vegetables
I’ve added a new page called Monthly Garden Jobs to 3000Tomatoes that will inform you of monthly garden jobs that need to be done. I will change it monthly. You will find general info; fertilizing info; what it’s time to plant and other miscellaneous tidbits.
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fertilizing,
Gardening,
Planting
The Good: Gardeners get motivation from all the great things that happen outside. Gardening is mostly good things flowers, smells, satisfaction – well, you know, the list goes on and on. The Bad: We have our frustrations with caterpillars mowing down our plants; cats and dogs trespassing where they don’t belong; big spideys, especially when [...]
Tagged as:
Planting,
snails
What a beautiful sight! No, not me. THE POTATOES!!! (Can you tell the humidity is high? Look at that hair!) My first crop!!! Back in March I found two red potatoes sprouting eyes in the pantry so I tossed them in an old green recycle container I had in the yard and piled on some [...]
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Gardening,
Planting,
vegetables
There was a nice article in the Union-Trib today about Arbor Day, planting trees, San Diego trees and a little of the history behind some of them. Read the article here….
Tagged as:
Planting,
San Diego,
Trees
