Hydrangeas Blue

Simple Bread and Butter Pickles Made From Garden Cucumbers

Now that the cucumbers are growing in my Florida garden, I was reminded of a simple bread and butter pickles recipe I found a few years ago. No canning was involved. Fortunately I was able to find my printed copy. (Recipe Link Below)

I don’t do canning, but I love bread and butter pickles made with fresh from the garden cucumbers. These pickles are stored in mason jars (or any jar) but there is no boiling required. Slice and mix the six ingredients (and add some of your own) and store in the fridge.

Include sliced onion and green pepper for flavor. Garlic cloves and hot pepper slices may work as well. Other herbs could be added to change the flavor, like fennel and dill.

And by the way, you don’t need to use a specific type of cucumber. I am growing two types, and I can’t remember what they are, but as you can see in my photo below, one type is very long!

The shorter, regular looking cukes taste better, but when making pickles it doesn’t matter. There are many other ways to use fresh cucumbers from the garden.

The recipe calls for 7 cups of sliced cucumbers, so wait until you have a bunch to use up. Cukes don’t last long once they are picked, so plan to make pickles the day you pick the cucumbers.
A mandolin slicer makes all that slicing go fast.

A Mandoline slicer makes all this slicing quick work

Note: One thing I changed in the recipe was the amount of sugar. The recipe calls for 2 cups, and I reduced that amount to 1 cup. I also added a few slices of hot red pepper and fennel sprigs.

Spoon the mix into clean mason jars. Divide up the remaining liquid into the jars, cover and put in fridge for 5 days. Then begin eating! They will be good for months.

The full recipe can be found here: Mamaw’s Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles.

Black Swallowtail Butterfly Eggs, Larvae and Worms

Finding the Swallowtail butterfly in it’s life stages in my garden

I’ve been watching as the Black Swallowtail butterfly flits around my vegetable garden laying eggs on the parsley and fennel. I took the camera out and got these photos. Everything looked good until the bees showed up!

In the first photo here you can see two eggs and one tiny black caterpillar. In the second photo see a more mature caterpillar. All these are currently found in my garden – all the stages. Right now I don’t think there is a pupa or chrysalis. Earlier this year a green one formed on the lower stalk of the fennel. They seem to prefer fennel over the parsley, although they are also known as parsley worms.

swallowtail butterfly eggs and larvae — Swallowtail butterfly eggs and larvae in fennel leaf

Grow some fennel if you want to encourage the Swallowtail to visit your garden. The worms will eat down the vegetables, so plant extra to allow them to feed. Check for eggs and worms before picking herbs!

Screen Shot 2018-06-16 at 4.02.39 PM — Worm on the fennel

Screen Shot 2017-04-20 at 1.55.56 PM — Worm on parsley

The “parsley worm” is so pretty, and fun to watch. They will twist and reach for those strands of fennel. In fact I was watching one the other day, and decided to go inside and get my iPhone. By the time I got back out to the fennel, a wasp was eating the caterpillar! I took the video below as one wasp, or hornet or whatever it was, got kicked off the meal and another took over.
I was tempted to pull off my shoe and kill those bees, but it’s nature, so I controlled myself.

Between the hornets and the birds, it is quite amazing that any caterpillars get the chance to turn into a butterfly.

Screen Shot 2017-04-20 at 2.02.19 PM — Newly hatched black Swallowtail on basil flowers

Screen Shot 2018-06-16 at 4.03.00 PM — The Swallowtail butterfly hovers over my garden

And here she is, back at the garden laying eggs on the fennel and parsley. There you have it, the full cycle of the life of the Swallowtail, found in my backyard.

For more great photos with life stages of the Swallowtail check out the post on Our Habitat Garden.

Finally, Growing Tomatoes Advice For the Florida Climate

As I was searching for some other gardening advice altogether, I came across a Florida gardening blogger who seems to have very useful information to share. Unfortunately it looks as if his blogging stopped a few years ago in 2015. Maybe he moved away to a better place.

I found a post with growing tomatoes advice which would explain why I have such a difficult time with tomatoes.

First of all he starts with seeds (Plant Your Tomato Seeds). I’ve been wondering if the fact that I buy seedlings from Home Depot (there is nowhere else I’ve found) is my biggest problem. He says store bought plants “are never very good”. I already suspected this.

Start planting seeds early enough to have seedlings ready for the garden by March first. He says to buy a combination of sizes, but tomatoes won’t grow very large in this climate. I’ve found that to be true as well. I don’t have the space for a lot of plants, but I can use my fabric bags.

Which Tomato Seeds to Buy?

The blogger I am referencing plants Hybrid Tomatoes only. I am not sure why, except that they are probably tougher than heirlooms. A hybrid is a cross-pollinated plant. The characteristics are better yield and disease resistance, among others.

In case you are interested in buying tomato seeds online: Organic Heirloom tomato seeds can be purchased at the Tomato Fest site. These are NOT hybrids. Heirloom tomatoes give the grower the option to save seeds to plant the following year. You can’t do that with hybrids.

Buy the most disease and pest resistant varieties. Look at package labeling for letters that follow the name of the tomato. See the key list of what that lettering means on this page at Gurneys. My packet above contains the letters VF which protects from wilt disease.

Indeterminates only – this means the tomatoes will continue to grow shooting out stems and growing tall all during the growing season. Indeterminates continue to set fruit while you pick ripe tomatoes. In other words, they just keep growing until something stops them. They need staking, whereas determinate varieties are more compact and can grow in pots.
**Note here: Indeterminates can grow to be 12 feet tall! I will need to re-think my staking. I suspect that in Florida they could easily grow to astounding heights. I can see the raccoons climbing my stakes and destroying my crops.

Pick Tomatoes Early

Letting tomatoes ripen on the vine is my preference, but the raccoons tend to pick them before I get to. My reference blogger picks his early and says they taste better when he lets them ripen indoors. His blog is helpful, but not easy to navigate, so use the “search” area.

He mentions planting some tomatoes later in the season, in the shade, in a new area, and they did well. Read about that at the bottom of this page where he “answers a question“.

I’m grateful for this info.

Caladiums and Impatiens Flower Garden Under the Trees

When I bought my house nearly 2 years ago, there was a little flower garden under the trees out front. I neglected it and it became overgrown very quickly. I’m not inclined to work outside in the heat, but the other day I decided a quick fix was in order. The garden is small, so the work would be minimal. We had brick pavers leftover from the building of the patio, so I used them to create a new border to hold the additional dirt needed.

I’m not yet very good with my Florida plant names, but the ones with the colorful, pointed leaves are Caladium. The link to Eden Brothers calls them “bulbs”. Mine came out of a pot so didn’t look like bulbs to me.

The white leaves are called “Florida Moonlight”. I don’t know the name of the pink-leafed one, but they add lots of interest in the yard. They love heat and humidity, which explains why they do so well here.

Also in the background around the tree are the thin leaves of the Variegated Flax Lily. I spent a lot of time removing lots of dead leaves from them. Even without attention they continued to grow, so I would say they are very hardy plants. Now that I have given them some attention, the lily is blooming. Each plant has tiny white flowers on stalks among the leaves.

little white flowers — Little stalks of white flowers on the Varigated Lily

When I first moved in here I bought a bunch of New Guinea Impatiens and put them in the garden by the front door. The brightly colored flowers add continuous color to the landscape. It turned out those annuals lasted nearly a year. The very cold nights in January finally froze most of them. Because they did so well, I bought a few more to put under the tree.

University of Florida plants list for the shade.

The purple flowering plant which is now under the tree is still in the short fabric pot. It is a Mona Lavender Plectranthus. I bought it because it was pretty, and I especially love the deep green of the leaves.

Now that I am researching this plant, I have discovered it needs some shade and is a perennial in warm climates. It seems that I have chosen a good spot for it to grow under the tree. I moved the fabric pot and did not dig up this plant. The potted Mona Lavender is now part of the shade garden and no one can tell it’s in a pot!

short grow bag — Plectranthus, Mona Lavender

Because planting around the base of a tree can be difficult because of roots, fabric gardening pots can be super helpful.

shade garden — The purple flowering plant is in a fabric pot.

All my new plants were purchased at the Home Depot. I also bought more organic garden dirt, and added blood meal and black mulch.

In my part of central Florida, plants can be killed in winter. When freezing temperatures are coming overnight I will have to cover all these plants to keep them from dying.

Cut Worms, Pill Bugs and Squash Vine Borers Invade My Space

My little garden has been growing like mad, but now the cut worms and other creatures are making a mess of it.

Cut Worms

I’ve seen black worms eating leaves, and they are not picky which plant they attack. These are the cutworms – pictures below. Cutworms can also nip a new seedling at the base and kill the entire plant, but these are concentrating on the leaves.

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.30.39 PM — Black spots are tiny worms

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.30.23 PM — Small worms huddled together

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.30.32 PM — Tiny cutworms living underneath a cucumber leaf

It turns out getting rid of the cutworm is easier than getting rid of the other pest, the pill bug. I can pick the worms off the plants. The large ones are fairly easy to spot, and my garden is small. I plopped them into my tray bird feeder and the cardinals came and had a meal!

Pill Bugs

My other problem is all the tiny bugs, which I believe are Pill Bugs. They are everywhere from huddled along the wooden sides of the raised bed, to deep down under the soil. And I’ve found them munching on my cucumbers too.

At first I thought these were a form of the cutworm. These bugs range from tiny to fingernail size. I thought they were harmless, but have found them eating the vegetables, so they need to go.

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.51.52 PM — Along the inside edge of the raised bed

As I was inspecting the garden, I found colonies of the pill bug along the edges of the garden. Too many to pick off. And as I dig, I find more underground!

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.37 PM — Single pill bug

I’m always looking for organic, natural ways to deter destructive bugs because I don’t use harmful sprays in my yard.

I read that the cutworm will eat corn meal and that will kill it. I’m hesitant to use cornmeal because of the raccoons that visit my yard each night. I don’t want them digging through my garden because they smell corn!

One site suggested using Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth. I just happened to have some of that! It’s made of crushed fossils which cut open bug that crawl across it which causes them to die. I sprinkled it over the dirt in my garden paying attention to the edges.

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.28 PM — Pill bugs roll into a ball when disturbed

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.53 PM — Bug on the cuke – hard to see, but he’s there a little left of center.

Besides these two destructive pests, I’ve got worms boring into my cucumbers and summer squash. While I was outside dealing with these bugs, an orange wasp (it’s really a moth, but looks like a big bee) was buzzing around my garden. Come to find out it is a squash vine borer moth looking to lay it’s eggs in my garden! The link has a photo of what those eggs look like.

The link above will give you lots of info about how to prevent the borer moth from laying it’s eggs all over the vegetables.

One idea is to use a Floating row cover. If the moth can’t get to the crops, it can’t lay the eggs.

Another suggestion which I found to be a simple try is to place a yellow bowl of water in the garden to attract the moth and drown it.

Troubles With Worms in the May Vegetable Garden

I would ordinarily consider May to be the beginning of vegetable growing season, but already I am giving up on one of my tomato plants and the summer squash. Worms are doing a number on everything else, and I am not sure it’s worth having a garden at this point.

Almost as soon as I planted the squash I had trouble with blossom end rot. I began watering less, and added a fertilizer with calcium.

I managed to pick two very small squash, but that is it. Other than those two, every squash that has grown, on both plants, has wizzled up and rotted. One squash plant has no flowers and no squash. The other has flowers and little squash, but all the squash are doing the same thing.

summer squash plant with yellow flowers — The summer squash began fine, then went downhill

I will be pulling up the plants and putting something else in the fabric bags. I do have zucchini seeds which I may try. Summer means fresh squash to me, and I hate that I can’t seem to grow it here.

Tomatoes should be easy to grow here in Florida. Tomatoes like sun and lots of water. Of the two plants I bought, one is a “celebrity” which is still doing okay. Currently it has around 8 tomatoes growing.

The other plant didn’t even have a name, and that one has bit the dust. The leaves began to turn brown and then the green tomatoes are rotting and falling off the vine.

I’ve grown tomatoes for many years, and very successfully, in New Hampshire. Just one year I had a problem with late blight. I don’t have blight this time, but I don’t know what the issue is. Honestly, I think the plant may have simply been bad stock. I hate having to buy my vegetables from a big box store.

Also I have been overrun with cutworms. They are eating the leaves of nearly every plant I have in the garden. I started picking them off by hand, but many of the leaves are already chewed. Being more vigilant will help, I hope. It’s been very rainy, which keeps me inside. Garden pests can get out of control if they are not caught quickly.

These worms are eating everything from the cucumber leaves to the tomatoes, basil and pepper plants. Cutworms can also cut off the new stems of seedlings. I don’t have that problem.

The squash and cucumbers have another kind of worm which bores into the vegetable and makes it mushy. They also eat through the stems which makes the rest of the vine droop and die, like in my photo. For more info on growing cucumbers and dealing with the pickleworm, read the post at the Central Florida Garden blog. It seems there haven’t been too many newer posts, but I intend to search it for useful information.

All in all, I am disappointed in my May garden. The orange ruffle hibiscus still has fuzzy mites on the leaves even though I have sprayed and trimmed it way back. I’ve seen this same circular white ring on the backs of some of my pepper plants. That is all I need! I didn’t have half these problems in the North. No wonder I don’t see farms around here!

The full recipe can be found here: Mamaw’s Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles.

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Which Tomato Seeds to Buy?

Pick Tomatoes Early

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Cut Worms

Pill Bugs

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!