New Year Gardening Plans. Part II

In my first gardening year, I experimented with many vegetable plants and herbs. Some of them grew well; others dried, died, or were attacked by snails and slugs right away. Yet others neither died nor produced the expected results.
One of such plants was spinach. Even though it started growing quite well, some of the sprouts didn’t survive the very hot California days. Those sprouts that did survive produced nice dark green leaves, but unfortunately pretty soon my spinach bolted and that was the end of it. I hope to get better results growing spinach this year by sowing it in a partially sunny place and by harvesting it more often so it doesn’t go into seeds.
I didn’t have much luck with growing radishes either. And again I made the same mistake as with the spinach by sowing them in full sun location. Radishes do not tolerate hot temperatures, and I think I will get better results this year by planting them on the east side of the house.
I was so disappointed with the cilantro. I didn’t get to harvest it even once (I so hoped to have fresh cilantro in my garden for salsa) as it bolted right away. Again, the hot weather is to blame. Growing in soil that reaches 75 degrees Fahrenheit, cilantro bolts and goes to seeds. Since I still have some cilantro seeds left from last year, I will sow them this week. We have warm winters in California and surprisingly we get little rain this year, so I might have some luck with my cilantro until the hotter days arrive.
I am not going to bother with bell peppers though. I spent a respectable amount of money on the seedling last year and it was not worth it at all. No bell peppers this year!
I had an interesting experience with zucchinis. I bought a package of zucchini seeds from Wal-Mart. From all the seeds that I sowed only one seedling came out. The soil and location weren’t the best, so my zucchini plant was weak and feeble. Nevertheless, it produced many flowers, but unfortunately the flowers would dry and fall off a few days later. By the end of the summer, the plant finally managed to produce one fruit. And what a surprise it was when it grew bigger and turned out to be a butternut squash! I would love to try growing zucchinis again, but these plants require space to grow and this is something that is very limited in my garden. No zucchinis!
Last spring I sowed onions seeds. In the fall I ended up with small (half an inch to one inch in diameter) onion bulbs. I dried them and stored for winter. I am going to plant them this spring, and I hope to end up with decent size onions bulbs in autumn.
Therefore, to my list of tomatoes, garlic, basil, and parsley, I can also add spinach, radishes, cilantro, and onions.