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.)
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.
Planting and re-planting in Fall for a good vegetable harvest. Bugs, weather, and animals can make things difficult.
Planting seeds is an ongoing process in my yard. Thanks to raccoons, my cats, and the armadillos, a lot of seed replanting happens. In my photos here, the only thing grown from a purchased plant (and not seeds or a cutting) is the sage.
purple sagebell peppereggplantbroccolitomato after Hurricanepepper & carrotsFall garden 2024 – Firespike is permanently angled from Hurricane winds
Where Are The Good Bugs?
I am into year two of vegetable gardening and I’m still wondering where all the good bugs are. Occasionally I see a ladybug. I rarely see much of anything else. It has me wondering if this area simply can’t support good things.
I’m not a fan of Florida. In my opinion the state is a swampland and should have stayed that way. Now, everyone sprays their lawns to kill all the things they never want to see.
All my neighbors spray their yards. I can only imagine how many beneficials are killed along with the unwanted cinch bugs and roaches. Is the ecology in my area so bad that I will never have a self supporting garden full of beneficial insects?
We have invasive frogs and lizards. Are they eating up all the good bugs that may show up? It really seems like everything is working against me here.
I Grow What Will Grow
Ideally, a backyard garden would supply food that is most loved and eaten often. What I would love to grow, and eat often, simply doesn’t grow for me. Onions, peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and carrots would be great. I’ve had no luck with peppers, zucchini (any squash), tomatoes, and cucumbers. Certain types of greens do well – Tatsoi is a favorite. And last year carrots and onions came up.
Luffa flowersZinniaBasil Daikon radish and new dirt section for planting
The Daikon radish is looking pretty good, but I’ve never eaten one. Can I make a meal out of a radish? The luffa looks sickly, a few beets look okay, the Egyptian spinach grows great – but I don’t eat it (yuk).
I’ve given up on peppers. The one bell pepper plant is covered in white flies or mites or whatever. I’ve tried to get rid of them, and gave up. I had quite a few nice pepper plants growing that simply died.
Squash and zucchini don’t grow. Last year I had a couple of Seminole pumpkins, which were delicious, but this year I have one that might be okay.
Beansborage & cabbageEgyptian spinachcarrotsbeets
I will have some carrots in a few months, and hopefully onions as well. It hasn’t been easy to grow those either with the raccoons digging up my seeds each night.
The one cherry tomato looked nice, until Hurricane Milton blew through. I’ve now propped up the eggplant that blew over too. Oh yes, eggplants last for years, but actually grow eggplants only occasionally. And they are not one of my favorite foods.
After success with carrots and onions last year, I was looking forward to Fall planting. I had whittled down my list to the things I had luck with. Broccoli, carrots and bulb onions are tops on my list. They are all growing very slowly.
The last thing I am going to try is to plant in raised beds. I purchased two more Vegega beds but have not put them together.
Spring is a busy time for me with garden plans and life plans colliding.
In Florida we don’t get a break from the growing season. Something is happening year round in the garden and yard. In a way, this is good. What fails at one time of year can maybe be tried again in a few months. We don’t have to wait an entire year for the growing season to return.
It also means we gardeners stay busy year round, planning and planting. This is only my second year trying to expand and grow here in east, Central Florida.
Plans and Planting and Juggling it All
Every time the first of the year rolls around, I find myself swamped. This was true even before I began to garden.
After cleaning up from the holiday season this year, we had a few camping trips planned. Also, both of my cats had to go to the vet for their annual shots, AND I needed to get new eyeglasses. (Did I mention it is also an expensive time of year?)
Skittle – Learn to chill like a cat
My high school class reunion (a milestone 50th, wow) was being held in April. I had originally planned to skip it, because it meant traveling to New England. My daughter wanted me to come up to New Hampshire for a visit, so I combined the visit with the reunion. But first, my youngest son came for a visit! Busy, busy.
In between all these life plans, I had to do Spring gardening. I bought mulch, compost, and seed packets. Transplanted crops beginning in February, and did weeding, cardboard layering, digging and watering.
Saved okra seedsBorage flower
While I was up north for two weeks, we got ZERO rain in the area of Florida where I live! My son was watering, but without good soakings, the ground all dried out. Once I got back home, I spent every morning trying to get water into the ground for my plants.
Finally, almost a week later, we had some much needed rain.
Rainclouds bring much needed rain to the area.
For the most part my plants have survived the drought. The hardy zinnias are blooming, caterpillars are eating the dill, and I’m even picking a few ripe blueberries each morning from the one plant in the garden.
The crops that did not do well are cucumbers and spaghetti squash. I needed to get the cukes growing early to miss the moths that arrive in June, or July. Last year I battled the caterpillars that ate up my plants. To solve the problem, plant cucumber before the moths arrive in the area. Now, it’s too late to re-plant. I also tried a new type called “Ashley” but I may never plant them again.
Spaghetti squash was something new I wanted to try. The plants began by looking great. Just before I left on my trip, they began to get powdery mildew. I sprayed the leaves, but by the time I got back most of the plants had died. The drought didn’t help, I’m sure. It is possible that this type of squash won’t do well where I live.
Lizard
It’s good to be back h0me and now I will be gardening regularly once again. I’m trying to keep the watermelon and Seminole pumpkins going. Also, I am growing Egyptian spinach. Will let you know what happens with that.
This is a quick post about what is growing in the garden in March. Realistically, I can’t keep up with my blogs, photos, work, and gardening. In summer I should have more time because I won’t be going outside.
At this time of year, I am out in the yard most mornings. There has been planting to be done and I still have a few potted plants that need to find a home in the dirt.
Pineapple
Pineapples are easy to grow here, but they take years to create a new pineapple. I had forgotten how much space they take up while growing, and planted them in a couple of my raised beds! Now there is no room for other crops.
This pineapple is finally having a baby! It will grow up out of the center and become a tiny pineapple. After – not sure how long – It can be harvested.
Baby pineapple growing!
Blueberries
I purchased this blueberry plant on a whim… without any idea about growing it, or where I would put it in my small yard. Blueberries are acid loving plants and I’ve been trying to keep it happy. About a month ago it began to get loads of white flowers and now I have tons of little blueberries – still green.
Either the raccoons will get them, or I might have a tiny crop for myself! (I’m hoping the raccoons won’t realize it’s something edible.)
Blueberries!
Gone to Seed
I like to let some of the produce go to seed. This is mainly for the bees. For instance, the Hon Tsai flowering broccoli and the regular broccoli have pretty stalks of yellow flowers.
For a while, every morning a big black bee would come to the broccoli flowers. Other bees, like the one below, were also regulars.
I plan to grow the Hon Tsai variety next winter, just for the flowers.
Broccoli flowersHon Tsai
Roselle, Squash, Carrots and Okra
The spaghetti squash is a new crop for me to try. The seeds have come up nicely and the plants are taking off. Fingers crossed I will have my own squash supply.
The Roselle plants were begun with seeds over the winter. They got bugs and a few seedlings died. The ones that kept growing have now all been planted in the yard. If you are wondering what Roselle is, check it out here: IFAS / UF Gardening Solutions: Roselle.
Spaghetti squash Roselle plantSaved Okra pod and seedsSpiderwortDanvers
Last year I grew okra and had a hard time eating it. Bleh… yuk. I did save a pod and have now planted some of the seeds. I won’t have a lot, but I love the plants and flowers – just not the actual okra!
I’m eating carrots now… finally. They took FOREVER to grow. Scarlett Nantes and Danvers did the best for me.
Spiderwort and Other Weeds
I’ve decided to let some Spiderwort and other flowering weeds grow in the yard. The area is small, and I plan to keep it all in check. Bees really love the flowers of these “weeds” and I want to bring bees to the garden.
I’ll let them grow where they pop up as long as it’s an okay place.
Spiderwort with beeRichardia Scabra ground cover with little white flowers that bees love.Ground cherryBidens alba
This white flowering “Bidens alba” is a particular nuisance when the seeds form. They stick to everything… my clothes, my cats, and are hard to remove. I plan to cut them down before the seeds form!
Watermelon, Cucumber and Seminole Pumpkin
Three types of watermelon have been planted, along with my much loved Seminole Pumpkin. The cucumbers are also in the ground and I am hoping to beat the moths this year.
So much more is happening in the yard, but for now that is all I have to share. There is still much work to be done, with mulching and walkways, compost and watering. It is fun work.
Anyway… I hope you are planting, or planning an upcoming garden, and I’d love to hear all about it. Happy Spring!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Planting new types of seeds purchased from Eden Brothers online.
Finally my seed packet order from Eden Brothers arrived. It took ten days, and I’d actually forgotten about the order because they sent no information updates at all! I’m not too happy with the company for that reason. I chose them because they had the Mimosa seeds.
Now I need to figure out what to do with these seeds, which include Nasturtium, Amaranthus, Powderpuff Mimosa, and Borage.
Nasturtium
I had loads of lovely nasturtium growing in my northern summer garden. I’ve never tried growing them in Florida. For that reason I will plant some seeds into the garden dirt, and the others will go into pots.
The seeds went into the ground around my pumpkins plants and watermelon. Two clay pots also hold seeds. They are the Alaska variety which is pictured below. The leaves and flowers are edible.
This is one of my favorite photos of my cat Skittle sitting amongst the nasturtiums and marigolds in my New Hampshire garden.
Nasturtiums and Marigolds (and Skittle the Cat) in my NH gardenThe full packet of seeds from Eden Bros.Alaska Nasturtiums grown from seeds in NH
Mimosa Seeds (Powderpuff)
I know nothing at all about the mimosa ground cover except that it has fluffy pink flowers. Most sites talk about growing it indoors, but here in Florida it should grow easily outside in the sun. Because I don’t care if it covers the grass, I’ll plant the seeds at the edge of my hibiscus garden.
This one is also called the Sensitive Plant because the leaves close / move when touched. And, I found it listed at the UF gardening site under Powderpuff Mimosa. I will put a few seeds in a pot and the remainder into the ground.
Amaranthus – Molton Fire (Edible)
Here is a page at UF, Gardening Solutions in the “food” section, all about the Amaranth. I guess it needs to go straight into the garden. Since I don’t have a lot of space left, some have been put into pots.
Borage (officinalis) – Edible
Borage is a herb that grows tall and is listed on this page at the IFAS site as a cool season crop. My Eden Brothers packet says that planting time is Spring, but shelter from “hot afternoons”. I think I will put some seeds into pots for now.
Borage has pretty blue flowers and it is edible. It also attracts bees. It grew wild near my house in New Hampshire, but I’ve never seen it here.
Hydrangeas Blue 