Winter

Not much activity in the garden in fall or winter, but here are some plants that are doing well.

Papaya tree:





Upside-down tomato:



Poinsettia (turns red for the holidays! It's green the rest of the year):



Onions are finally ready to be harvested (and I planted a lot!):



Aerogarden tomatoes!



Merry Christmas, everyone!

Jack-o-lantern

Aerogardens

Oregano/coleus



Cherry tomato/Red Fire Peppers

Okra

Surprise visitor

When I went out to the front garden to plant some caribbean mint, look who I found in the yard!

September

Hey gang, happy September!

September is a new planting season in my region (zone 7).

Boyfriend and I went up to Lowe's and got some plants (I didn't start from seed this time because it's harder to in the late season, although I did put some turnip, cabbage, and corn seeds in the blank spots of the beds).

We got some new stuff to see how it would do. Big Boy tomatoes, Black Prince tomatoes, orange, green and banana peppers. I considered watermelon but the plants didn't look nice. In general I've had better luck with smaller tomatoes (cherry, Roma) but I felt like experimenting. :)





I took the crazy mint plant out of the Aerogarden and put it up for adoption.



Look at the roots! Holy moly!



Here's the Aerogarden now. Finally the oregano has some room, and I put in 2 coleus to accent.



Also I am starting a new upside down tomato as the old one broke/was damaged. Just starting to sprout:



I also filled in the blank spots out front (the neighbor's cat had trampled the bed) with purple flowers called Shooting Stars.

Rain rain go away

Dear followers,

You may be wondering why you have not seen many posts lately. For one the weather has been rainy and the garden has not been doing well. I had to tear up most of the one raised bed because the plants rotted from being too soggy. The 2nd reason is that I haven't been going out too much because the mosquitoes are out of control and I am allergic to them. If I go out to the garden for 20 minutes have 10 or 15 mosquito bites.

Anyway, these are the plants that survived:

Cucumber, although not the healthiest due to the rain...



Jalapeno : a VERY happy plant and a big producer





Green peppers (growth has been stunted, but they are starting to make flowers now)





And okra, which seems to be happy and hearty no matter what the weather conditions!



Also the avocado trees in pots seem to be doing just fine and have a lot of new growth.

Someone ran into the upside down tomato, I suspect, during a party I had. It broke off so I just started a new one.

I did plant some corn out there and I'm waiting for it to sprout, even though thus far I have not had luck with corn. But hey, fall is coming.

Here are the Aerogardens.

Mint (unruly and out of control!) Tastes great in water..



The globe basil also got crazy so I put it up for adoption :)



I am pleased with the newest garden, red fire peppers and red heirloom cherry tomatoes.





On the gardening agenda is:
- find a spot to plant the avocado trees (may wait til spring as last winter was very cold)
- fill the empty bed. Corn was planted. May plant turnip and cabbage seeds or cheat and buy starter plants at Lowe's

And when it gets colder we definitely have to get the trees trimmed!

That's about it. Ta ta for now!

-Min

Walnuts

I never realized we have a huge walnut tree in the yard! I actually stepped on something, realized it was a nut, and looked up. There's a ton of them up there!

Yard cleanup

Having fun with the dumpcart!

New crops

The spring batch of crops pretty much expired due to storm season causing constantly soggy conditions (which also draws pests). But that doesn't mean we didn't get awesome harvests!!! We made salsa countless times from the Roma tomatoes, cilantro, and jalapenos. We actually served some of the salsa at our 4th of July get together and got several compliments on it! After a few tweaks, I have that recipe down pat!



I took the cascading petunias out of the Aerogarden, moved them to hanging baskets, and replaced them with tomatoes and Red Fire Peppers. First I'm starting some more romas for the outdoor garden, then I will remove them and replace with cherry tomatoes which I will grow inside.



I also started Romas under the ag grow lights in a burpee seed starting kit. They too will go outside.

A new upside-down tomato was started too. We enjoyed cherry tomato harvests from the previous one!



I plan to try my hand at making hot sauce from the Red Fire chilis. We will see how that goes!



In the other Aerogarden I have some assorted herbs. Globe basil, mint, oregano, thyme, and chives.



New pickling cukes, dill, and okra were also started outside. We have really been enjoying the homemade pickles. However, the pickling cuke plants we had going before were also affected by soggy conditions, so we pulled those up after the new plants sprouted.

Thanks to my awesome boyfriend for cleaning the expired plants out of the raised beds! :)

Fatalities

Some plants that didn't make it:

Sunflowers - they were doing fine and then starting to droop so I propped them up with stakes. Then one day I went out there and found the heads of the sunflowers had been either chewed off or knocked off.

Squash - it didn't make it last year, and it didn't make it this year. It does not like wet conditions. Florida always goes through a storm season where we get tons of rain. The squash plants then rot. The same thing happened to the cantaloupe plants last year. I thought having them on a trellis would help them out but it didn't. The squash simply don't like to have their roots or stem wet.

Corn - the corn appears to have been killed by a critter or pests. At first we were noticing holes dug around the corn. Around this time I also spotted a raccoon out back at night. Then later we found the corn either chewed off or broken and trampled.

Morning glories - I planted them around the base of trees out back, but they didn't make it. Either not enough water or no place to latch onto and climb. They did not want to climb directly on the trees. They much prefer fences or trellises.

Harvest

Here's only a portion of what we harvested lately.

Friend or foe?

I wake this morning to find five of these caterpillars on my dill, destroying it. At first I tried to pick one off but he reared up at me and then I thought maybe I shouldn't be touching it because it might be poisonous. So considering the condition of my dill, either chewed off or turned brown from the damage that they caused, I decided to go get the pesticide and I sprayed the plant down. Then I sprayed the surrounding plants just in case. We have been using the dill to make pickles, and we grow the cucumbers in the bed next to the dill.

A few minutes later I looked up the caterpillar and what type it was. As it turns out these caterpillars would have become beautiful black swallowtail butterflies. So then I started feeling guilty, but I already sprayed them, so what could I do at this point? I walked back out there to look and I saw that the spray had already taken effect. But on the other hand I didn't want any further damage to my garden.

I still don't know if I made the right choice.

This n that

Not much "gardening" lately, but lots of harvesting! Woo hoo! Planted some herbs in the one AG. The other still has petunias going crazy!

Here is a friend that visited the yard this weekend.



Also here's the latest project! Set up the fishtank again!

Okra flower