Celery Archives - The Gardening Adventure

Garden journal – October 2020 part 2

The spider mites invaded about half of my eggplants. I removed most of the leaves and I will wait to see if they will recover this late in the season, usually they have no problems regrowing the leaves and producing fruits during the summer and early autumn months.

Below are a few before and after pictures.

I removed most of the celery plants that were growing between my pepper and eggplants to give them more light now that the days are sorter and the weather gets cooler.

Another project was to remove the leaves that were attached by the spider mites from my potted tomato plants and spray them with neem oil.

I removed the papaya plant which dried out and rotted. I was surprised by the look of the roots and how easily they came out of the ground.

Because this year I had a lot of Fuyu persimmons I dried many of them. I cut the fruits in half, then cut them in slices about 1/4 inch thick and dried them for 12 hours at 135 F degrees. My food dehydrator was very busy this year since it was a very good year for fruit trees.

This month I also planted my garlic between the cauliflower plants.

Relocate mature plants Garden journal – September 2020 Part 2

During the second half of September, we had a few days with temperatures in the 80s and I was able to do some work in the garden. I had to relocate mature plants to make space for the cool season plants. I didn’t want to be late with my cool season plants like last year, so I decided to start early.

One of the tomato plants was getting infested again with a lot of spider mites. The spider mites love the heat and low humidity weather that we’ve had lately and they multiplied fast. I removed most of the leaves and sprayed the plant again with neem oil.

The cucumber plants that were in the ground stopped producing fruits for some time. So I decided to remove them to allow more sun to get to the peppers and eggplants.

In order to make space for the cool plants in the garden beds, I removed and relocated a few mature plants. I removed the celery, arugula and strawberry plants from the garden bed where the big tomato plant is. I purchased a new type of garden soil, Amend from Kellogg, and I mixed it into the existing soil. Afterwards, I planted parsnip, carrots, beets, onions and radishes.

Because my seedlings are not ready to be transplanted outside yet, I purchased 6 seedlings of purple broccoli and transplanted them in the same garden bed.

I used the homemade compost in another garden bed. Because it was enough to cover only about 75% of the space, I will use planting mix and manure for the other 25%.

Relocate mature plants

Last year I compromised my cool season plants because I didn’t remove or relocate mature plants and I planted the cool season crop between a few leftover plants from the warm season. Another mistake was that I transplanted seedlings too late in the fall. Hence this year I decided to do it right and start fresh with my garden beds and a little earlier.

Relocate strawberries

As space is always a problem in my garden, I was planing to relocate the strawberry plants in pots. But after I read an article on Greg Alder’s blog in which he had transplanted strawberries next to the fruit trees, I got inspired to do it the same way.

First I prepared the new location next to my apple tree, by removing the layer of wood chips. Afterwards I watered the place a few times to be sure the water gets at least 4″ deep and made holes for the strawberry plants to go in.

Next I removed the plants from the old location and cut all the runners to have only individual plants and placed them in holes in the new location.

Next to the strawberries I had a few arugula plants that needed to be relocated also. I decided to move them into the other bed with homemade compost. I also watered the new location until the water got at least 4″ deep into the soil, and then I relocated the arugula plants.

Relocate parsley

Because I moved my blackberry plants from the 5 gallon pots into bigger ones, I also had to relocate the parsley plants. As a result of that, I moved them next to the arugula plants as the space was already prepared.

Transplanting blackberry

I created the new potting mix needed to transplant the blackberry plants. In order to do that I took the old potting mix from the parsley plants and mixed it with bark, peat moss, perlite, fertilizer and garden lime. The experiment with the potting mix tried during the quarantine wasn’t successful, so now that I could get all the ingredients, I did it by the original recipe.

In the beginning of the month, when we had the record heat wave, I moved the blackberry plants in the shade next to some trees. And surprise, all the tips the touched the soil developed roots. I cut them and placed them in 4″ pots, hopefully I will get more plants by next year.

I decide to transplant the other Blackberry plant directly into the ground, so I can see if it will be a difference between the plants next season.

Blackberry plant transplanted in the ground

Transplanting raspberry

A friend planted a few raspberry plants last year and he harvested a lot of fruits this year. Since my kids love to eat berries, I want to give it a try. The variety that I found is called Willamette.

Next year I should have strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries if everything goes well. We’re all looking forward to it!

Another project was to fertilize the papaya, dragon fruit and artichoke plants. I finally found some chicken manure at Armstrong gardens.

This month I tried for the first time the air layering of cherimoya and fig trees, hopefully I will have positive results in a month or two.

Garden journal – July 2020 part 2

In the second part of the month of July I harvested the radish seeds. They were dry and ready to harvest.

This year I had a lot of celery plants that sprouted from last year’s plants seeds everywhere in my garden. I removed around 70% of the plants to make space for the next season plants. I pulled them out with the roots and gave to some neighbors to transplant them in their gardens.

The second year tomato plant was fully infested with spider mites. I removed most of the leaves and I will remove the plant in a week or two. I want to wait for a few of the bigger tomato to be ripe.

The figs started to ripe a few weeks earlier than last year. We dried most of them and also made jam twice. Second time we added some peaches to the fig jam.

I don’t have to worry about saving some cucumbers for seeds. Every time a few hide between leaves and I discover them when is already too late to be harvested. I leave them on the vine until they are ready to collect the seeds.

Aloe Vera fertilizer & other projects

Today I made my first Aloe Vera fertilizer. I inherited a lot of Aloe Vera plants and I didn’t know what I can use it for in the garden.

I had a few more projects today in the garden:

Dried mint leaves
Removed bolted celery
Split tomato seedlings

Aloe Vera fertilizer

A few weeks ago I read an interesting article explaining how to make fertilizer from Aloe Vera. It’s a natural and easy to make fertilizer, which benefits the plants and helps them grow better root systems.

First I took a few Aloe Vera leaves and blended them together. Afterwards I took the blended liquid and mixed it with rain water. I poured 2 cups of mix and filled the watering can all the way up with water.

Mint

Every year I have a lot of mint and I don’t use most of it. This year I decided to dry a lot leaves and use it for tea. I cut the mint and after I washed it, I placed it on a tray to dry in the sun. The mint was dried in a few hours, but I found out later that I have to dry it in the shade for the mint not to loose a lot of it’s nutrients and flavor. Next time I’ll do it correctly and I’ll update the post.

Remove bolted celery

The last project of the day was to remove bolted celery that was keeping too much shade to the other plants and also slowing their growth.

Below are a few before and after pictures with the trimmed celery. The tomato plants are only visible in the after pics, before it was just a celery bush.

Split tomato seedlings

Every year around the end of August or beginning of September, I loose the battle with spider mites that kill all my tomato plants. This year I planted a few tomato seeds later in the season. My plan is to plant them in containers far away from the other tomato plants in order to hopefully avoid getting spider mites on them.

I planted seeds in 4 pots and a few of them had more seedlings per pot. Instead of removing the extra seedlings, I moved each one in its own pot. This was a good opportunity to plant the seedlings deeper in the new pots, which will help them develop a better root system. If you would like to see more detailed instructions for potting up seedlings, you can see a step by step guide in this post.

Before and after tomato seedlings – May 5

Tomato updates

In the next section I will post periodical updates with the above tomato plants – Glacier and Golden jubilee.

May 14 Update – the seedlings doubled or tripled in size

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!