Garden update 3/12/12

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Time for another garden update. I have finally planted all of my tomato plants. Yay! Last year I grew 6 different kinds, this year I upped that number to 12. Hopefully in a few months I will be loaded with tomatoes to eat and give away. I have also planted 4 different types of bell peppers and one poblano pepper plant. The only pepper left on my list is a jalapeño plant and one of the heat less jalapeño plants that I grew last year. All of the taste, none of the heat.

I also wanted up give a little recap and update on my celery plant growth and sweet potato slip growing. First for the celery, the plant has been in ground for a little over two weeks and is growing great. See below for the two week growth photo. The baby celery stalks are emerging quite nicely. I have had several questions regarding planting your own celery, so I just wanted to recap for some of you what I did. I brought my celery home from the store and cut the tops off leaving about 2-3 inches from the base. Then I took the base outside and planted it in my garden. I just planted it about an inch deep in the soil, but I think that you can plant the entire base and leave the top level with the soil. The prefered temperature for prime celery growth is 65-75 degree’s F. It can tolerate full to partial sun and they like lots of water. In a few months you should have your new celery stalks ready to cut and eat. You can also just cut of the stalks of the celery as you need them leaving the rest of the stalks to continue growing.
Next my sweet potatoes just started to produce leaves, the roots started right away, but yesterday I noticed one of the sweet potatoes had a little shoot growing out of the part that was above water. Today when I took the picture below, the leaves are quite visible. I am excited that this is working and hopefully by late April I will have slips ready to plant. The sweet potatoes do very well here in central Texas because of the long summers.

Last I wanted to touch on other plants that you can grow right from your store leftovers since this seems to be a popular subject. One of the more popular items is green onions. Just cut what you need after you purchase them and then stick the rest in water in a well lit window and you will have green onions for quite a while, but be sure to change the water regularly. In addition to green onions, did you know that you can grow more leeks from your leftovers too? This is similar to the green onions or celery, just place in water or soil and new shoots will grow from the center. See my photo for a reference of the leeks after being cut a few days ago. In the photo you can see the new green shoots growing out from the center. Lastly you can also grow a pineapple plant and even a baby pineapple from the crown (top leaves) of your store bought pineapple. Now this will take about two years to get a fresh pineapple to eat, but you can still enjoy a tropical pineapple house plant for free from your pineapple remains. Below are a few photos of me trying to grow my own pineapple plant ( just planted this a few days ago too). See this link for details about growing your own pineapple. We will see how it goes….

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  1. Anthony

    March 16th, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    That celery trick is pretty cool. Thanks, I'm definitely going to give it a shot in my garden this year.

  2. ~~louise~~

    March 27th, 2012 at 10:02 pm

    It's me again:) I just had to do a quick search to see if you too grew a pineapple. Yours looks so cute:) Let me know if you want a link to the post I did about mine. It will be three years old this April!

    LOVE love love the celery idea!

    Thanks so much for sharing…

  3. arfarmerette2012

    April 14th, 2012 at 4:05 am

    Saw a post on Pinterest about your celery. What a cool idea. I have some celery in the fridge and will definately be putting it in my garden.
    Hoping you won't mind if I post your idea on my gardening Blog with a link back to your Blog. Too good of an idea not to share. :O)

  4. Beth S

    April 30th, 2012 at 12:44 am

    I planted my celery base today so we'll see how it goes. Thanks for the great idea!

  5. MMM

    July 13th, 2012 at 5:48 pm

    I saw a post about your celery as well! I'm going to try it. I'm in Northern Oklahoma so if you can get it to grow in Texas, I should be able to do it here. Will prob have to keep it in doors now though since its 95+ here.
    I'm also going to try your sweet potatoe idea! Thank you Thank you!!

  6. Debbie

    July 15th, 2012 at 5:55 am

    Love your tips. I will now start keeping the bottoms of my celery and other vegetables to regrow them. How much we will save without having to purchase them in the super market. Great Blog!

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