What Are You Planting Today, This Week, This Month?

[desertcat]

It finally decided to be winter, so my planting is on hold...was going to try some lettuce and spinach next to the south-facing brick wall...but I DID order my onions from Dixondale today! Also having a great time trying to decide which varieties of what I need to order.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Today, I planted Southern Giant Curled Mustard in a milk jug.

 

[hoodat]

I like the red giant mustard. It doesn't taste different from the green but it's purty.

 

[desertwillow]

I've never tried it but will look into it. I like mustard greens. I'm almost 73 and still gardening.

 

[897tgigvib]

Not planting anything quite yet, but in about a month, this year I'll do some indoor starting.

 

[catjac1975]

My daylily seedlings are growing like tall grass in my greenhouse.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I like the red giant mustard. It doesn't taste different from the green but it's purty.

I planted both last year and I did think the red giant was milder, but could be my imagination. I am going to plant some again. This is what I had.

 

[897tgigvib]

That Red Giant Mustard was the variety I had one plant of last year that came in a 6 pack of mixed greens.

Yes, once it gets going making those big juicy leaves it is absolutely delicious, especially the leaf stems raw. That's right, raw, fresh picked, yummydelicious garden munchie! Midseason last year the aphids began, but once I put about 12 pounds of diatomaceous earth in that bed, something like 4 by 12 feet, after washing them off and doing the hand squishings, bleyeech, the aphids were pretty much gone. So, as yummy as they are to humans and Neanderthals, they are yummy to aphids too. Just do a good proactive preventative remediation to beat the aphids.

I was actually thinking about crossing this Mustard with a Rutabaga! First I gotta grow them both though, and I'd have to get the right variety of Rutabaga. Reminds me to double check, but I was websurfing one day and found that in Maine along the coast there was a shipwreck a long time ago. Someone found roots in a box and planted them and very large white and green Rutabagas grew. The biggest and ugliest Rutabaga variety of all. So that is a very rare heirloom Rutabaga. Too ugly for any seed catalog to want. So I want it! And I want to cross it with this Giant Red Mustard.

Wouldn't it be cool to have a slow growing Rutabaga that gives yummydelicious leaves also? And, one that makes a Rutabaga too ugly for anyone else to want??? (Ha! Reminds me of an old friend who said he married his wife because she is too ugly for anyone else to want!) Sorry about that, gettin old enough to have side stories. The F2 selections of the cross I am sure would be an interesting bunch!

Gonna get to that search again, on Google...

 

[desertwillow]

I'm not planting anything right now, but making plans for the end of January. I have onions and garlic growing. I'll have a big job in my garden this time. My daughter and family lived with us for four months while waiting to get a house. They'd moved down from WA and the first house's escrow fell through. They have five grown dogs and they liked to jump my fences I have to keep out rabbits so wherever they landed I lost plants and irrigation. The bearded iris are already coming back and it didn't hurt the roses but other areas were wiped clean. It will be fun to buy new plants are get cuttings from friends. I am growing mulberry trees from cuttings in the house. I started 6 and four are still doing good. They are the fruiting kind. I need to get some more cuttings started.

Has anyone had any luck starting eucalyptus cuttings. I have trees but can't get a cutting to start. I live in the desert so am limited somewhat as to the kind of trees that will take the heat, drought and the wind. The Alleppo Pine and Eldorica Pine do well also.

 

[Smart Red]

Has anyone had any luck starting eucalyptus cuttings. I have trees but can't get a cutting to start.

I have no idea - and know that they wouldn't grow around here anyway. If normal cuttings don't work. . . .

You might want to try a modified layering technique to get some started. Take a plastic pot filled with growing medium. I'd add something to really hold water in the medium. Tie (I use macram) your pot near the end of a branch. Make a slit underneath a branch just less than 1/2 of the depth. I usually stick a bit of toothpick to hold the slit open a bit.

Dust with rooting compound and stick the branch, slit and all into the medium (I remove any leaves that would be under ground) with the branch tip at the end sticking out. Cover the pot with plastic wrap as much as possible to keep moisture loss low and add water when the medium feels day on top. You should get roots growing in the pot. Then you can cut the branch in front of your slit and plant the new tree you've started.

This is a modified version of sticking shrub branches into the nearby soil to get new starts. That works well for me.

Love, Smart Red