Who needs a nursery when you have your local store

Sometimes it's very difficult to obtain seeds or plants to propagate whatever you like as fruits or vegetables. Also some fruits will never grow true from seed.

                               

Having had success with ginger rhizomes (original post here) I started exeprimenting with  more  plants purchased from my local store.

Some healthy Garlic ( Allium sativum )

  bulbs caught my fancy (well suppsoed to gaurd against vampires no  :)  ?  )

I seperated the cloves from the bulb & planted seperately although as an experiment I planted one whole bulb to see how it will do. Garlic usually needs a sunny spot & regular watering, but as with most plants never soak the plant to avoid root rot etc. 

Personally I love beet / beetroot (Beta vulgaris )as it has lots of fibre & vitamins . I planted this big one as is (I could have easily cut 1-2 com from top & planted that alone -see second photo ) . Again I am experimenting.   Turnips were a big failure as the green leafy part grew then died back . I am still watering it to see if new shoots will grow.

Garlic after 18 days of plating - 28/06/2010

Beetroot on 28/06/2010 ( after 18 days ) seems to be ok so far :)

Lily Propagation - bulblets, bulbils, scaling

I love this Oriental Lily cultivar Casablanca,( Genus Lilium )

The flower has a fantastic scent & looks great when it blooms summer time.

My Lily has produced bulblets with their own roots, so I will seperate them & move to another pot.

I mananged to get 3 bulblets so I potted them in a seperate container just below the surface. These bulbs will pull themselves down into the soil to protect themselves till they are ready to grow new shoots etc. Again never overwater the new bulbs to avoid root dampening which will cause them to rot & die .

This one had a shoot already so I kept it above the soil obviuosly :)

Very interesting methods to propagate lilies.

Lily Propagation - bulblets, bulbils, scaling