Fall Garden: Growing Hon Tsai Tai Flower Broccoli

Experimenting with growing Hon Tsai Tai Flowering broccoli during fall and winter here in Central Florida.

I’d never heard of Hon Tsai broccoli until I saw it mentioned by Elise Pickett of The Urban Harvest. Now, I can’t find the location of that mention, but here is what I am doing.

I bought a packet of her seeds and planted a few in pots in September. Just a few weeks ago I transplanted the two seedlings into a raised bed (October 4th). More seeds were added and have now sprouted. The early starts are much bigger. Some of the leaves have been chewed by something that I can’t see.

Hon Tsai Broccoli
Hon Tsai broccoli

Info on Hon Tsai Tai Broccoli

I love broccoli, and I’m not sure if the normal stuff can be grown here (planted in Fall also, but have only leaves to eat), but I’m trying to grow this type from Heirloom seeds. It will not look anything like “normal” broccoli though. I’ll take it for the fresh greens and make a stir fry. 

The packet of seeds, which came from The Urban Harvest, doesn’t have any information – the back of this packet is plain white. I have made notes about the Hon Tsai but I have no idea where I got the information! I’ve searched and searched. I think it was an Urban Harvest video, but I can’t find it.

Hon Tsai broccoli seed packet

Here is what I will share from the notes written on the back of my seed packet. This link goes to the page to buy the item at The Urban Harvest. There is some information on that page.

Another site, High Mowing, has information about the Hon Tsai Tai Flowering broccoli they sell. Information on Hon Tsai Flowering Broccoli. The goal is to have leafy shoots with unopened flower buds that can be eaten.

This type of broccoli is a cool weather crop. Articles online mention that temps should be in the 70’s and below. Here’s the thing – seeds need warmth to germinate and in general seedlings like it warmish. A Florida fall season can be very hot at times. It can also be cold overnight as we get into November and December.  Right now, we are still getting hot days (it was 80 today on Oct. 20th).

 * I ended up replanting this bed (pictures below) with kale and Texas Early Grano onions. I did keep one Hon Tsai broccoli plant and it turned out to have some beautiful flowers.

Hon Tsai broccoli seedlings
flowers of hon tsai broccoli
Flowering Hon Tsai Broccoli

In closing, I’ve decided to grow the Hon Tsai broccoli again next Fall, but I will put it into the ground gardens. I’ll start it from seeds in pots, in September – because those plants did the best. Although I have been eating the leaves, they are not a favorite food. The flowers are fragrant and pretty and I wouldn’t mind having those growing all over the ground.

Videos For Growing Greens in Florida

Here is a list of videos that might give Florida gardeners an idea of what to plant during our winter months. It’s a bit tough to decide what to grow and when because our winters can be hot, and very cold. We can get freezes – at least where I am. If things are growing, they might need covering on very cold nights. Save up those old sheets and buy some clothespins!

Growing Bulb Onions

I can easily grow chives / scallions – those thin green stalks, but actual onions were thought to be impossible to grow here.

Then I saw a post on Instagram by a local farmer who successfully grew onions. They were planted in Fall and harvested before summer. The Texas Early Grano (link above) is the type mentioned. So I immediately bought some seeds.

I now have onions coming up all over the place. Onions take up very little space. I don’t have much space, so my onion seeds are tucked in all over the place. I really hope to have some slicing onions by next Spring.

growing onions
Texas Grano onion sprouts

Here’s What Else is Happening in My Yard

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First Time Growing Tomatoes in Fall

The heat of summer here in Central Florida is something tomato plants don’t like. I grew one tomato plant this summer. It grew tall and big, but never had a single tomato. Now that things are cooling off a bit, I am hoping the tomatoes might grow and give me fruit.

But, I’ve had some trouble along the way.

I started the tomatoes from seeds. They grew tall and lanky and I put a few into the ground. They were promptly dug up overnight! I suspect raccoons, but maybe armadillos. We have both.

transplanting tomato plants
These tomato plants need more sun.

My only choice was to get them planted in a planter, off the ground, where they were not as likely to be dug up by the wildlife.

The white barrel planter at the back of my yard was being used as a compost bin. It sits alongside the Hot Frog barrels and I use it to throw larger branches and stems into. This raised bed area was full of good compost dirt. I decided to plant two of my larger tomato seedlings here.

You can see the barrel in my photo below, which I took for the Moringa trees post. Unfortunately it turned out that there is not enough sun back here for the tomatoes. I had to move them.

Moringa
Backyard area

It was time to transplant these tomatoes again to a sunnier area of the yard.

Without all my garden areas ready to be planted (it’s a slow process), I have few choices. Also, they could be dug up again by the critters.

I had cut back the hibiscus and cleaned up the garden area around it. Of the four flowering plants planted here in Spring, only one has survived! My new little flower garden was mostly a fail! Haha… what can you do but move on.

This is where I planted one of the Eva tomato plants. I have some native milkweed seeds coming, and I plan to grow milkweed in this area.

hibiscus trimmed
Changes to the Hibiscus Garden

The Eva Purple Ball tomatoes are in new spots, which now will get a bit more sun. Already the sun is lower in the sky and the whole garden area is less sunny. Most of it gets at least six hours of sun a day, so I hope we are good.

I’m hoping these little tomato plants will grow well and give at least a few tomatoes before the weather gets too cold. We have plenty of warm days ahead, but by December we could have a cold night or two.

This Fall weather is much like a northern summer, where I grew tomatoes just fine. It’s all an experiment, so we’ll see.

The tomato seeds I purchased were: Amish Paste, Druzba, and Eva Purple Ball. I also have a packet of Tropic VFN. I will plant the rest of these seeds in Spring, Only three Eva and one Druzba are currently growing. A couple of volunteer tomato plants have sprung up and I’m letting them grow to see what happens.

Buy Tomato Seeds For Southern Gardens

I buy seeds for southern gardens from either The Urban Harvest or Southern Exposure Seed Exchange – SESE. The Urban Harvest is located on the west coast of Florida (St. Pete), so the seeds they offer are meant to grow well here in Florida. At SESE, some of the seeds they sell will not work this far south, as they seem to cover a wide area of the southern US.

Digging the Sweet Potatoes in October

Sweet potatoes grow really well where I live. They need no attention at all and just vine around the grass while the roots create little potatoes. At least in my case they are little. This is probably because they were crowded into a small box.

harvested sweet potatoes
Sweet potatoes dug!

I began growing sweet potatoes this spring for the leaves. It is the one green thing that has done well during the heat. I would pick a few leaves and chop them to cook or add to soup and / or stew.

Then, one day I was making a pot roast and wishing I had a sweet potato to add. Oh wait… I am growing them. Sure enough, I dug down into the grow box and pulled up a little sweet potato! It was added to my stew.

sweet potato leaves
Sweet potato leaves

In order to store sweet potatoes they should be “cured”. Basically it is done to let the skins toughen up for storage, and the potatoes sweeten.

I am leaving my dug potatoes outside to cure, because we have heat and humidity – see my first photo. After two weeks, I’ll brush them off and bring them inside. Here’s a video by Elise of The Urban Harvest to explain harvesting sweet potatoes. (I’m jealous of her big garden spaces.)

grow pot and bag
Planter and bag ready for seeds or seedlings.

Freeing Up the Box For Planting

Another reason I dug the sweet potatoes is that I can really use another grow box for planting this Fall.

I also invested in two new grow bags with handles. You can see them on this page which I wrote about using grow bags for gardening. I like small, manageable pots that can be moved around if needed.

That box in my photo above has wheels on the bottom and I just drag it around to find the sun. The grow bag pictured is only half full of dirt, which makes it easy to move too. Once I plant, I will fill it where it stands.

By the way, as soon as I had these new places ready to plant, the raccoons dug all through them overnight! (They dug up a potato I missed!) Maybe the trick is to put something new out, let them be nosey, and wait until they are no longer interested, before planting.

Please keep reading…

Growing Chijimisai Tatsoi Greens

This year I learned about growing greens that will do well here in Central Florida gardens. I have just planted something called Chijimisai. It is supposed to be a lot like spinach.

In general, greens like lettuce and kale, must grow in cooler weather. In order to pick greens for salads, smoothies and for stir-frying we must grow during the correct season for where we live.

Now, it is mid October and cooler weather is here. I direct seeded the Chijimisai into a grow pot on the 4th of this month. Today, two weeks later, it looks like this:

Chijimisai greens
Chijimisai at two weeks – planted from seed.

After two weeks, I was wondering about thinning the greens. I found a YouTube video of a man (in Texas I think) harvesting / thinning his Chijimisai and it was very crowded. He had let it grow and then thinned it when the plants were pretty large. At that point he could use the bigger leaves to eat.

That is what I plan to do.

Right after I planted the seeds in this pot, the raccoons walked all through my planters and I’m sure stopped the growth of some seeds. Grrrrrr…. I put eggshells all over the dirt to deter their little paws. I don’t know if that works, but I had to try something.

By the first of November my spinach garden is full of wonderful, edible green leaves!

Chijimisai spinach
greens growing raised beds
Arugula, spinach, and lettuce with radishes.

Buying Chijimisai Seeds

This is the packet of seeds. I still have some left to sow later on. At this point I don’t know what will grow and what won’t. I’ve only planted partial amounts of seeds in my small pots and some areas of the garden.

seed packet Chijimisai

I bought my seeds from The Urban Harvest. They sometimes send seeds that come from other providers. I’ve had luck with most of the seeds they’ve mailed me and I continue to buy from them.

I’ll update the blog as the season progresses. I’m really hoping for some good greens this Fall.

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Dealing With Worms on the Cucumbers

Wish I’d known more about growing cucumbers in summer here in Florida BEFORE I decided to try to grow them during summer.

Apparently the pickleworm moth moves northward from South Florida and shows up around June / July – here in Central Florida. The moths lay eggs during the night, and worms hatch that eat the heck out of cucumbers and other veggies. (See this extensive article about the pickleworm.)

green worms on cucumber plant

Bumblebee Morning Visitor

So I’m covering my plants. Each morning I get out to the garden early to uncover the cucumber plants. I know that the bumblebee will be along shortly to visit the flowers. Within a few minutes after the plant is uncovered, this little bee shows up.

  • bumblebee on cucumber flower
    Morning bee on cucumber flower
  • bumblebee on cucumber flower
    Bee on cuke flower
  • suyo long cucumber plants

Now, it’s Fall and I have ripped out my cucumber plants (all three of them) as they only gave me a couple of edible cukes. I was spending too much time, for too little yield, for growing them to be worthwhile.

  • Suyo Long cucumber on the vine
    Garden cuke
  • Suyo Long cucumber
  • Homemade bread
  • Cucumber sandwich

I hand picked the little worms and threw them onto the mulch walkway for the lizards. The cucumbers didn’t grow very well either so I’ll be planting in early spring next time.

Planting and Growing Stories

What to Do With the Moringa Tree?

Gathering some information about using the Moringa tree for tea and food.

The day I began this blog post I was sick. Probably that new strain of Covid got me, but here’s what I did. By the afternoon I felt well enough to pick some Moringa leaves and make tea.

When Googling “make tea from fresh Moringa leaves” everyone wants to tell you to dry the leaves and make powder. I picked some leaves, boiled water and let the leaves brew in my little teapot for ten minutes. It made a nice tasting (like boiled grass) hot drink. I hope that the goodness leached out into the water and went into my body!

So what else can I do with this tree?

Moringa tree small
The Moringa is growing well

Using the Moringa Beans, or Drumsticks

My trees are still quite small, but growing fast. One day they will produce long, hanging beans. This video shows how this family picks and processes the beans. I’m not sure that I will ever do this, but it’s nice to know about.

Seedlings and Flowers

A note about the seedlings: They may look eaten but that is how the plant begins to grow. As this naked stem popped up from the dirt, I thought maybe the leaves had been eaten off, but they actually had not begun to grow.

My smallest Moringa tree, which is only about 4 feet tall, has white buds and flowers. The bigger trees have never had flowers.

Moringa seedlings
Moringa seedlings
Moringa flowers flowering
Flowers and buds on small Moringa tree

Moringa Care

I really know nothing about the Moringa tree except what I’ve learned from watching a few videos. I’m not sure how to grow it. I planted two trees side by side in the back garden corner and completely forgot about the power lines going to my house. The tree, if not trimmed, will eventually hit the lines. So now I am trimming the trees from the top to help them bush out and not get tall. Also, in winter I noticed scratch marks and broken limbs where the raccoons have tried to climb this tree!

The bottom stems are turning yellow which many people mention. It seems to be a normal part of this tree’s growth pattern. Maybe to shed old leaves and make way for new.

Moringa
Trimming

The new growth at the top is very easy to trim up. I either use the leaves for making tea, or put them into the compost areas.

That Weber box is my newest compost bin. It’s a long story but basically every time I transplant something into the ground it gets dug up by raccoons and armadillos. So I had to use my white compost barrel to hold two of my tomato seedlings. It’s not ideal, but I would love to have some tomatoes!

That means I lost the old compost bin and needed a new one. I’m still filling up the Hot Frog, but composting is a very slow process.

I Need Space

One thing I don’t have, and can’t buy, is more space. The yard area where I can plant is pretty small. It is both good and bad. I would love to live among open fields, with views and places to roam. Instead, I live on a claustrophobic piece of land in a big neighborhood. I am probably like many people.

On the other hand, I can’t manage big gardens. I don’t have a man who will do the heavy lifting and work the tractors and machinery. More garden plots are in the works and I will really get going on organizing the yard once the heat subsides. It is mid October now and we still have the AC on in the house.

Dirt and compost are also what I need. Without a vehicle, I can’t get to the yard shop when I’d like. A delivery of dirt would mean using the wheelbarrow to move it all into the back yard. I am considering doing this. My old body may not be happy, but it’s exercise. If I do just a little at a time, it could work.

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