Basil Archives - The Gardening Adventure

Drying figs and herbs

This month I decided to try drying whole figs in the sun for the first time, since my dehydrator doesn’t have enough space for the fruits to be dried whole. I’m not happy with the results, because they started getting bad before they were fully dried, so I don’t think I’ll use this method again. I will continue drying figs cut up in pieces in the dehydrator I did before.

The basil and chocolate mint that I had in pots were getting too big and I cut some it so I can dry it. After I washed them, I put them in trays and placed them in a darker place in the house. I also dried some oregano.

How to transplant cucumbers

One of the major projects or today was to transplant cucumbers seedlings in the garden.

I had a few other smaller projects:

Harvest beets
Trim tomato plants
Add planting mix to the garden beds
Remove poppy plants
Treat eggplants against pests

How to transplant cucumbers

The cucumber seeds planted on April 4 are now seedlings ready to be transplanted. I had seedlings in 5 of the 6 squares and I planted 2 of them in the ground and 3 in pots.

Next I will explain step by step how I transplant cucumbers seedlings in the ground. I’m using one extra ingredient that I don’t use for any other plants. It’s an organic granulated slow release fertilizer that I purchased a few years ago and I noticed that the cucumbers love it.

Firstly I make a deep hole, place the granulated fertilizer at the bottom and then I cover it with soil. The fertilizer will help the plant later in the season, when the roots will grow deeper and reach it.

Next I add to the hole my regular ingredients: half measuring scoop of starter fertilizer, half scoop of grounded eggshells and quarter scoop of epsom salt. Then I carefully remove the cucumber seedling from the container and place it into the hole. I cover the seedling with soil and when I’m about 1″ from the ground level, I add the earthworm castings which I cover with a very thin layer of soil. The last step is to water it thoroughly to make sure the water gets all the way down to the roots.

Cucumber seedlings — Cucumbers ready to be transplanted

Hole for cucumbers — Hole after I covered the granulated fertilizer with soil

Below are the seedlings transplanted into 5 gallon pots. I explained my method to transplant cucumbers in pots in this post.

Tomato care

During this time, the tomato plants are growing very fast. I have to check them almost every day because they get fruits and if they don’t have adequate support, they will fall – like the one in the picture below.

I secured the fallen branches to the trellises using plastic rings. In the next pictures I will show the entire tomato plant before and after. Circled in red are the branches which needed saving.

Another project was to trim all the tomato leaves that were touching the ground. in order to stop the spread of the diseases and pests.

Beets

Last year I left one of my beets plant go to seeds and this year beet plants spouted everywhere. The one in the picture below grew between 2 concrete blocks. There was almost no space between, but somehow it managed to push the vertical ones and grew one of the biggest beet roots of this season. It did much better than the ones I carefully planted in the prepared soil and watered and fertilized 🙂

At the end of one of my garden beds, I had planted beets which I wanted to use in salads. Since I had a lot of lettuce growing in the same period, I barely used the beet leaves. The tomato plants which were growing next the them were showing signs of distress, so I decided to pull out all the beets.

After I removed the beets, I added some planting mix to the soil and transplanted 2 basil plants in their place.

Other projects

Some of the garden beds needed extra planting soil. Usually you can add the planting soil between seasons, when the beds are empty and you can mix it with the soil as per instructions, but my garden beds are almost always full. Sometimes I might have half a bed empty and I do it in the recommended way. That was not the case today, so I just sprinkled the planting mix between the plants.

Every year I get tall and beautiful poppy flowers. I saved the seeds for the last 2 years, but I didn’t use them because I’m not 100% sure they are edible. This year I decided to remove them before harvest time because they are shading the zucchini and celery plants and slowing their growth.

The last project of the day was to take care of the pests that were eating the leaves of my eggplants. I like to use organic Bonide bug and slug killer to protect my plants.

How to transplant peppers and eggplants

The main project of the day was to transplant peppers and eggplants. Below is the list with all the projects presented in today’s post.

Transplant peppers and eggplants
Split eggplant seedlings into individual pots
Relocate a few celery plants
Transplant basil plants next to my tomato plants
Transplant garlic
Plant radishes and bush beans

Transplant peppers and eggplants

Most of the seedlings are ready to be transplanted in the garden, but I currently have some winter vegetables that I would like to keep for a few more weeks. I had a location in my garden with radishes that did not do that well, so I removed them and transplanted 6 eggplants and 4 peppers in their place.

The location where the pepper and eggplant seedlings will be planted

Split eggplant seedlings into individual pots

A few months ago, on February 15, I moved a few eggplant seedlings into 1 gallon pots, as you can see it in the seedlings update post. It was time to split them up into individual pots.

Multiple eggplant seedlings in the same pot

Eggplant seedlings after splitting the roots

Relocate celery

In one of my tomato garden beds I have a lot of volunteer celery from last year’s plants seeds. I removed some and relocated them into another spot in my garden, between 2 old trees.

Transplant basil

Next project was to transplant basil into the tomato garden beds, because basil is a good companion plant to tomatoes. Same as the eggplants, I had 3 or 4 plants in each pot and I split them up before transplanting.

Transplant garlic

Last year I planted garlic and onion on the edges of my garden beds. I didn’t harvest all the garlic, so this year they spouted again in groups. I split them up and planted them between peppers and eggplants.

Planting radishes

I had a few pots that will be empty for another month, so I decided to plant radishes in them, since they should be ready to eat in 1 month. Because I had some extra space after removing the volunteer celery, I planted radishes there too.

Planting bush beans

While going through my seeds collection, I discovered a very old packet from 2012 with gold rush bush beans. Since their planting time in my zone is between March and August, I decided to give it a try. I planted them in 4 of my 5 gallon pots. Fingers crossed!

Today in the garden Dec 7 2019

Today I took advantage of the fact that the soil was wet and I planted more seeds where I had some available space in the garden.

Here I planted red cherry radishes next to the ones planted a month ago. I like to stagger them so I have a continuous harvest.

I found a spot in the garden with eggplant and pepper plants that didn’t have any fruits on them, so I removed them to make space for radishes. I also pulled out the onion and the weeds and prepared the soil for planting.

I added some compost from my compost bin and mixed it into the soil.

The third project of the day was to plant some beets.
I had a beet plant left in the garden from the last season to flower and attract pollinators and around 2 months ago I picked up the seeds and put them in a bucket (I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them). After moving the bucket around a few times, I forgot about it and today I noticed that it was not covered and the seeds got wet from the rain, so I had to do something with them.

I also noticed that in one of my broccoli containers, a beet plant had popped out. I researched if beets and broccoli grow well together and after the confirmation, I decided to experiment and planted the beet seeds in the same container with the broccoli and cauliflower.

Soaked beet seeds, just ready to be planted

Prepared the holes and planted the seeds .

The last project of the day was to plant the pepper seeds for the next season.

I like to use the organic potting soil from Costco as my seed starting mix, but they only sell it during spring and summer time. Last year I didn’t have any potting mix left to plant my seeds, so I used a different seed starting mix. I still have some left from last year, so I will do an experiment in a container with 6 squares.

I had enough seed starting mix to fill 2 squares and I used Costco potting mix in the other 4 squares. I planted the same type of bell pepper seeds in all of them and I want to see if there will be any difference between the plants.