Losses and New Growth, Gardening As Always

May is a time when new growth begins after winter die-back. Also the winter garden veggies are mostly ready to pick.

We had a crazy “winter” here in Central Florida with a long freeze that has changed the landscape. We had losses. It is May and many plants and trees are coming back – thankfully – but the two-day below freezing temps destroyed many perennials that could not handle it.

Palm trees in particular still have many brown fronds. Banana trees lost all their green, but have pushed out new leaves.

My large crotons completely died, but there is new growth way down at the base on a few. Same thing for the rubber trees.

I lost my pony tail palm tree, which is say, but it was fairly small to begin with, and the fiddle leaf fig, which is in a pot outside, looked completely dead, but has sprouted new growth.

Both Moringa trees completely died. Their tall branching trunks will need to be removed, but new growth is coming from the bottom.

Moringa tree with new growth at the bottom of dead tree
Moringa new growth
Aji Charapita pepper with new leaves at base
Aji Charapita – coming back
Desert Rose with lots of flower buds and green leaves.
Blooms after dying way back
Holy basil plant growing in a bucket with tall flower stems
Holy Basil grew back
Coral Honeysuckle growing on a tall trellis with lots of flowers and vines.
Coral Honeysuckle did well
Sunshine Mimosa ground cover with pink flowers
Sunshine Mimosa
Swamp milkweed flowering in white
Milkweed

Lost Some Wonderful Milkweed!

Last year I mail-ordered some swamp milkweed from the Grower’s Exchange and it was beautiful. All four plants grew tall and lovely. Sadly, only one of those plants survived the freeze. It was the plant which grew closest to the house.

I also have other milkweed, such as the white flowering swamp milkweed pictured above. All the tropical milkweed is dead – which is a shame because although it is the WRONG kind to plant, it grows fast and feeds Monarchs.

At the present time I don’t have many milkweed plants. Maybe some of the ones growing will give me seeds.

May in My Garden

After all the cold was gone, I planted the remaining Contender bush bean seeds. I have been eating green beans nearly every day for weeks now! They are delicious but I might leave the rest on the plants to dry – if they will. I know this is how to do it in a normal climate, but Florida is different. It will be a new experiment.

green tomatoes on the vine
Organic tomatoes
bulb onions growing
Bulb onions
spring garden harvest of carrots, kale, tomatoes and green beans

Spring is the time to collect good veggies from the Florida backyard. Once the heat is here for good – any day now – the heat hating foods will wilt and die. So, I’m enjoying the dill, borage and green beans for the next few days, or weeks.

May garden photo with raised beds and vegetable plants
My May garden
Horsemint spreading throughout the yard
Horsemint / Spotted Bee Balm
Backyard with cardboard paths and wild growth
Backyard
Eggplant growing
Eggplant in a fabric pot

Eggplant will grow year round, but eggplants to eat are sporadic. During the summer months I will be planting only sweet potatoes and they should arrive any day now. If you are wondering what to plant for summer in Florida, I wrote a page about Five Things to Grow in Summer that need little to no attention.

Enjoy your summer!

So Long For Now

I’ve given it a lot of thought and I really don’t have time to continue writing on this blog. Or, maybe I should say I’m cutting way back. My efforts need to go into starting a new online business.

My knitting blog gets a lot of views and that is where I need to write. Not many people grow vegetables in Florida, and the lack of interest just does not make it worth my while.

It is not the first time this blog has gone dormant. I’ll probably just give it up, but right now I am giving up on too much, so this must wait.

Also it is the end of the year, which seems appropriate to close up shop.

To all who have visited, commented, and read my little stories, I thank you.

(Skittle in my New Hampshire garden. It’s one of my all time faves.)

flowers of fall

Time to Harvest the Roselle Hibiscus For Tea

This year I grew a few Roselle Hibiscus bushes to collect the pods and make tea. Ants are always a problem, but I found an easy solution.

Last week I began cutting off the larger roselle hibiscus pods. Once they flower, the pod, or calyx, gets big with the seed pod inside. The red outer petals are ready to use.

Roselle stem with flowers and calyxes

This year only two large Roselle hibiscus plants were growing in the ground. I learned my lesson after the first year when I had way too many big, bushy roselle plants.

One plant would be plenty for me, but I guess I planted two to be on the safe side. I like to have the petals to make tea.

This hibiscus variety is not the same as the hibiscus that flowers and becomes a big bush here in Florida. The Roselle has flowers, that last about a day, but the pods that come after are what we want.

Orange hibiscus
Decorative hibiscus (not edible)
double orangea hibiscus
Hibiscus flower – no pods form on this one

Dealing With the Ants – No Sprays Needed

Ants are drawn to the pods. If I wait too long there will also be white mealybugs inside the petals also. This year I harvested the largest calyxes (or pods, as I call them) in early October. Many large pods had already formed, but lots of smaller ones were still coming.

I soaked all the harvested pods in jars of water outdoors. This either killed the ants, or caused them to crawl out and leave the pods. By the way, these were not biting ants.

After a bit of a wait, I drained the pods and began to peel off the red petals. All the ants were gone. I found only one mealybug, so I think harvesting early helps with that.

Red roselle hibiscus pods in glass jars filled with water.
Ant removal
Roselle pods drained and ready to peel
Drained and ready to peel
Roselle pods peeled
Peeling

Once the petals were all removed, the remaining green pods went into the compost. I rinsed and dried the red petals and stored them in the freezer. I’ll take them out to use when making tea.

Simple Tea

All I do is boil water and let the petals soak in it for 10-15 minutes. Sometimes I make an herbal tea and simmer the roselle along with Moringa leaves, Maypop, rosemary and basil. Or, I use whatever is growing in the garden.

red tea Japanese pot and cup
Roselle tea
roselle flower
Roselle hibiscus flower

After the harvest of the biggest pods, I cut down the plants, leaving only a couple of tall stems. I’ll collect a few of the pods when they are dried and save the seeds inside. This hibiscus likes the heat and does not continue to grow over the winter in my yard.

The seeds will be planted next year to grow one, or two, new roselle bushes. No more than that!

bees

More fun times in the garden…

Five Florida Summer Crops That Need Little to No Attention

Here are five crops that can be planted in a Florida garden over summer. They will grow without much attention, and that keeps you out of the heat.

Gardening in Florida is different to say the least. Summer is hell here. It is simply unbearable to be outdoors. If I get outside before the sun hits the little patch of yard that is my garden, I can bear it for a very short time. The humidity is killer.

However, I love to grow things. I’ve come to realize that there are a few crops that can grow during a Florida summer and they need no attention. That means you can stay indoors during dry spells. Watering every morning won’t be necessary.

Sweet Potatoes

Find a good place in the yard, that can be dug up easily, and plant sweet potato slips. This coming Spring I will be ordering purple sweet potato slips. I plan to plant them in one of my Vegega raised beds once again. I found that digging them up was tough, but I don’t really have any other place to grow them.

This past summer I filled the long bed with sweet potatoes and zinnias. The vines got all tangled in the flowers, so I won’t do that again! The potatoes won’t be dug until the end of summer, or beginning of Fall, but the leaves can be eaten in salads all summer long.

Vegega metal raised bed, oblong shape
My long oval raised garden bed made of metal, with sweet potatoes and zinnias growing.

Roselle

Roselle plants create calyxes (sp?) that can be used to make tea. The plants will grow from seed, and take off by mid-summer. Each plant grows into a wide bush, so make sure you have space for them. One or two plants will give you a lot of little red tea leaves to save by Fall.

Be aware that these shrubs are not strong. We had a storm come through and it broke the Roselle you see in the photo below.

mulch path in garden around a wide roselle plant
Roselle bush in 2024

Okra (Yuk.. but…)

I grew okra the first year I had a garden. I’d never grown or eaten okra so I wanted to try it. And what a pretty plant! The good news is that it grows like mad. The bad news (for me) is that it is simply disgusting to eat. If you like this vegetable, and live in the south, grow it.

I’ve recently been getting into fermenting vegetables. Supposedly fermenting okra, for at least 4 months, will remove the slimy texture. I may try it.

okra growing in the garden
Okra plants have such pretty flowers

Basil – Specifically Tulsi, or Holy Basil

Basil is tough to grow here in Florida. But once I began to grow Tulsi, or Holy Basil, it simply grew. I didn’t have to work at it, and now it is popping up all over the yard. The only trouble I have is that in Fall the little bugs (aphids?) hit the new growth and I have to remove it. But this basil can take the heat – especially in a shady location. I use it a lot, in cooking, salads, and tea brewing.

holy basil growing in the garden
Holy basil in my yard

Cowpeas

These are dried beans and they come in many varieties. I grow them as a cover crop and not to eat. For this reason I plant them and forget it. Cover crops keep the soil good by shading it and putting nitrogen back in (like green beans). I look at it as a way to feed the empty areas in the garden.

The first year my cowpeas grew so tall that I put stakes up for them to wrap around. I saved some of the dried pods for planting the beans (they are like beans, not peas) but have never eaten any. If you want to save the seeds, bring the brown pods inside to dry before they get moldy from the humidity.

This past summer I only grew a few cowpeas and they stayed fairly small. The flowers attract bees, but the bean pods attract ants. Watering is unnecessary. When the stalks are ready to be cut down, they make a great addition to the compost pile.

cowpea pods on the plant

Plan and Buy Seeds in Advance

Everything I grow is started from seeds. The sweet potatoes are an exception as they grow from slips, or little cuttings. I like to plant directly in the ground, or raised beds, or buckets, because I detest little tiny pots! Seeds are cheap. Yes, it takes longer to grow from seed, but we have a long season here in Florida.

Places I buy seeds:

Just remember that all you plant and grow in summer must be cut down and removed for the Fall planting. Some things, like herbs (the basil), can be left to grow where it is. The basil will re-seed itself, so watch for little plants popping up nearby.

It’s not like you will have plates of delicious food to eat from these crops, but it’s always fun to watch things grow. Meanwhile you will be feeding insects that enjoy the flowers.

divider seedlings plants
More stories from the backyard

Fall Gardening is Underway

Here I have a photo of my Fall garden. It is hard to tell what is growing, and honestly not much in the way of food just yet. The seeds have all been planted except for Kale and dill. I will also grow more green beans along the way when I find space. (I’m already eating a few!)

I need more mulch. More grass needs to be pulled. Gardening is constant, but I am making headway.

The Roselle plants are looking awesome and I should have some red pods for tea soon. (Yup, I’m beginning to pick the pods.)

Roselle stem with flowers and calyxes

I’m growing Daikon radishes once again, even though last year I had so many. I was using them in salads last year, but this year I plan to ferment them!

Homemade compost is being added to all areas of the garden. More compost is brewing in the bins.

Composting

Chopping up the Marigolds and adding to the composter -My Hot Frog.

Onion bags

Fabric bags have been filled half full and onion seeds have been planted. Onions don’t have such long roots. I’m filling all my bags part way and rolling down the sides. They are planted with Texas Grano bulb onions.

Each day new holes are dug – by armadillos I presume – and old holes are getting deeper. This area will mostly hold flowering plants and dill. That way if things get dug up it’s not such a big loss.

holes dug in the garden
Diggers

More about fall… from past years

Orange Bug Nymph ID… They Are

I need help identifying this cluster of little orange bugs. They are on a Cayenne pepper leaf.

I noticed this cluster of something on a pepper leaf outside my window. At first glance, I thought it looked like a bunch of little snails. I do have bad eyes. Once I got a photo and zoomed in, I could see it was many little orange bugs.

The cluster of little guys is located on a Cayenne pepper leaf. They are not ladybugs, but that is all I knew.

cluster of orange bugs on pepper leaf

When searching for orange bugs with black spots, I get Assassin bugs and Milkweed bugs. Neither one looks like this, but I know these are young. Assassin bug nymphs are not shaped like this, and if they are Milkweed bugs, why are they on the pepper plant? I do have milkweed plants in the yard.

A reader once told me that if they are in clusters, they are bad. Can anyone help identify these little guys?

Hey, thanks so much. Now I know that these are stinkbugs. I removed them from the peppers and we are all good now!

Others

I’ve had little orange bugs before. They are the nymph stage of the Leaf-footed bug. These were all over the wild, ground cherries.

orange nymphs black legs