Ginny
Stibolt, a naturalist with a master's degree in botany, moved from
Maryland to Green Cove Springs in northern Florida. These are her
adventures in gardening. Follow along and learn with Ginny as she
tackles a wide range of gardening and environmental topics from
butterfly gardening, edible gardening, and ecosystem gardening, to rain barrels and
rain gardens.
12/4/11 The
Timberdoodles are back! Read my post "Of
Timberdoodles and Ecotones" over on the Native Plants &
Wildlife Gardens blog.
"We’ve probably had them wintering on our
property for years, but first noticed them only last year. Their
plumage, a mix of different shades of browns, grays, and black, blends
in with the winter vegetation and they stay hidden during the day unless
you flush them out of hiding. Last year, we saw a group of squirrels
flush one out of hiding. ..."
11/28/11 Cover photo
A few weeks ago I
met with Melissa Contreras, my co-writer for "Organic Methods for
Growing Vegetables in Florida " down in south Florida. Here's our
cover photo.
The
second draft is almost done and now we're gathering photos for the
32-page inset. It's been a fun project and of course I've learned a lot!
Next it'll be in the hands of the copy editor and it should be available
by the end of summer, maybe.
Nov. 4th The
Gopher Tortoise: A species of Special Concern Read my post
over on the Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens blog. There is a
tortoise that now lives in our back yard. Its burrow is on the bank of
the wooded shallow ravine that runs from our pond in our front yard to
the lake in the back.
When I first saw it a couple of weeks ago, it was not
particularly worried or shy. The cooter turtles that live in our pond
and lake would have pulled in their heads and legs into their shells at
my approach. This guy kept walking.
Note the shovel-like front leg. The gopher tortoises dig
significant burrows that they end up sharing with a wide variety of
other animals. Because of this, they are a "keystone species"
in the ecosystem. (Read
more.)
October 23, 2011 A bug killer in my
gardens:
An armadillo came calling late last night,
To my vegetable gardens. Oh what a sight!
I will redo the beds to make them right,
Thanks to bug killers that aid in the fight!
An armadillo dug up this fallow bed where a nice
stand of okra had grown this summer. I'm in the process of enriching it with kitchen scraps, because
okra is a heavy feeder. I bury the scraps at least six inches deep,
cover with soil, and
then mulch with pine needles. I love pine needles as mulch in the
vegetable gardens because they last for two or more years and are easy
to separate and rake out--yes, even after a disruption like this. I
added more scraps today from our shiny new composting bucket. >>
<< And speaking trench composting: the rogue
squash vines that grew in another bed have produced a wide array of
shapes. I harvested a bunch of them the other day because the vines are
dying back, but there are a few areas of new growth and new flowers. I
will harvest the new squashes while they are small to use in a stir fry
or salad,
because at this point, I don't give them much of a chance of maturing.
The squash flowers that I fixed a couple of weeks
ago were delicious.
The armadillo dug some in other beds as well, but most
of the fall crops are okay. How's your fall season coming?
October 16, 2011. It's
Blog Action Day and the topic is "Food." My
post over on the Florida Native Plant Society blog explains the how and
why of ecosystem gardening. No edible garden is an island, it exists in
the surrounding landscape and neighborhood. Ecosystem
Gardening
"Like
many other members of the mint family, dotted horsemint produces a
strong odor when the leaves are crushed... The volatile chemical
produced is thymol, which is the same chemical in thyme and oregano
leaves.
So if you’re tired of convincing those boring-looking Mediterranean
herbs to love Florida’s climate and soil, substitute the gorgeous,
easy-to-grow, salt-tolerant, drought-tolerant, native dotted
horsemint. The taste is the same; plus both you and the insects will
be much happier."
The previous blog entry was "What??!
Native Plants Not Pretty?,"
which related my adventures at the garden fest in St. Augustine
mentioned below.
10/5/2001
Garden Fest in St Augustine: It's been more than a
year since I've participated in any events. This one was close to home
and I was available for the weekend, so I bought a spot as an outside
vendor. The weather cooperated and quite a few people came out to buy
plants, participate in the 4-H activities and attend the presentations.
I'll be summarizing the event soon, but I thought I'd share this story:
<<
I shared a laugh with this Irish couple (Mary and Martyn) at the
garden show in St. Augustine this weekend. I often suggest to people at
garden fests that they need my book because they'll buy plants, take
them home, and then kill them. My book can help them be better
gardeners. Martyn's comeback was, "Yes, we always buy plants
on Sunday, take them to church, and perform the last rites for them
before we take them home!" :-)They
bought my book, anyway.
I posted One
Native Plant = Three Habitat Benefits over on the Native Plants
& Wildlife Gardens blog. It's about the easy-to-grow coral
honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) and all the birds it
attracts--hummingbirds in the summer, berry-eating birds in the fall.
October 16th is the annual blog Action Day and this year
the topic is Food. I'll be writing a piece on the Florida Native Plant
Society blog on the importance of native plants surrounding vegetable
gardens. Last year's topic was Water and I wrote: "We
All Live in a Watershed" on the FNPS blog. As a result of the
blog action day activity the traffic for this blog post was almost ten
times greater than normal. Maybe we can replicate that this
year.
Sept. 30, 2011 Stuffed
Squash makings: My volunteer squash vines
have produced only one keeper squash, the rest have rotted on the vine.
This is not totally surprising since the seeds are from squashes grown
in the garden which could have hybridized with others plants in the squash
family such as zucchini, yellow squash, or cucumbers. Hybrids might not
produce many fruits.
<< This morning I harvested a bunch of squash
blossoms (both male and female that are attached to a small squash);
couple of big daddy bell peppers (The totally orange one is the same as
pictured below.); The one squash that has been produced; and some
walking onion greens.
This harvest has been sitting in the refrigerator to
keep the flowers from wilting. Later I will stuff the flowers with a
cheesy filling, dip them in a light batter and fry in olive oil. Before
I fry the flowers, I'll fry up a mess of peppers and sweet onions--the
orange of the big daddies will dress that up. The onion greens
will be divided between the stuffing and the stir fry. The one
squash we'll have some other time--it'll keep; it's a winter squash.
September 27, 2011 Big Daddy Peppers:
Better late than never. I planted my pepper seeds along with the
tomatoes last January, but for some reason they have taken all this time
to finally produce some good-sized peppers and this one is ripening to
its distinct orange color. The big daddy peppers from Burpee have
performed well for us for years, so their v - e - r - y slow growth has
been a surprise.
I have seven or eight plants that should fulfill our
pepper needs for the rest of the season until December. We've had
a nice crop of yellow banana peppers through the summer, but those
plants are spent now. Sometimes Mother Nature knows how to space out the
harvest.
September 23, 2011 The
Autumnal Equinox! It's been a hot dry September until the last
few days. The cool weather crops planted at the beginning of the
month have suffered--I'll replant this weekend or early next week. I
shoulda waited...
<< A tiny broken-dash skipper butterfly (Wallengrenia
spp) sits on a sweet gum leaf in an area mulched with wood
chips. I think this scene looks quite fall-like with the tans and
yellows.
A late-blooming string lily (Crinum spp) makes
quite a show at the edge of the front wooded area. I have a fairly large
collection of crinums and they seem to bloom on different schedules so I
have some blooming off and on from late spring until the middle of fall.
>>
<< The hurricane lilies (Lycoris spp) are blooming again
now that it's fall.
I love these Asian lilies because their flowering stalks sprout naked
and bloom quickly--a pleasant fall Surprise! They are located opposite the
blooming string lily (above), so the view from my office has been
greatly enhanced. After blooming, the hurricane lilies will grow some
leaves that hang around until late spring, die back in late spring and
fade from the gardener's memory until the next fall when she's surprised
again.
I hope you're celebrating the autumnal equinox in your yard by
stopping to find a tiny skipper or by smelling the sweet fragrance of a
string lily.
9/14/11
Butterflyweed! One
of several seed pods on my native butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa).
This orange-flowered, low-rowing milkweed bloomed twice this year with the second
set of flowers producing some impressive pods. When they're ripe, I'll
gather all the seeds to plant in a controlled environment where I can
monitor their care. Otherwise they'd float away on their gossamer wings
and probably land in a neighbor's poisoned lawn.
I've
bought a number of these plants, but most of them have not
survived. Now that I know where they like it, that's where I'll
plant my new seedlings.
The
beautiful native mint, spotted horsemint (Monarda punctata) has
out-done itself this year. This
plant contains
thymol oil, which is also in thyme and oregano. This Florida native
could replace some of those Mediterranean herbs.
Cool, eh? It is tall and rangy, though, so it might not fit into a
neat and well-mannered herb garden. I have mine in a couple of places
where its tall beauty can be appreciated. (Update: see Dotted
Horsemint: An Appreciation)
Read
my post over on the Florida Native Plant Society blog: The
St. John's-worts: Under-rated landscape plants where I talk about shrubs
with gracefully arching branches called St. Andrew's Cross and I also cover how to
use a plant key for identification.
9/7/11 The Fall
Planting has Begun! Four days ago I planted some fall crops, it
was time because we had two nights in a row that were less than 70 degrees. I use wide row planting where the rows are 6 -20 inches wide and less than 4 feet long with
6-inch deep trenches between the rows that I fill with pine needles. The width of the trenches depends upon what's planted. In this case, 2 rows of
leaf lettuce with a row of carrots in the middle--trenches are 6 inches wide. The two types of leaf lettuce are red
(lollo rojo) and green (black-seeded simpson), while these carrots are short &
sweet.
Yesterday we had light rain all morning long--less
than 2/10 of an inch, but perfect for my new seedlings. The lettuces have already sprouted, but the carrots will take another week or so.
In other areas of the garden, I also planted a red-stemmed spinach, salad burnet (corn salad), sugar snap peas and another row of
carrots--cosmic purple.
I'll irrigate every other day until the seedlings become
established and then back off to twice a week depending upon the rain.
9/1/11 Gardening is a series of humbling
experiences. Remember a few weeks ago, I stated with certainty
that some cucumbers had sprouted from my trench
composting in the garden? Well, I was wrong, yet again. I got the family
right, but instead of cucumbers (Cucumis
sativus), the sprouts turned out to be butternut squash (Cucurbita
moschata). This is an open pollinated squash and cross-breeding
occurs regularly since they are insect pollinated. Notice the vine with
un-lobed light gray leaves. It will be fun to see what type of fruit (if any)
come from that vine. I removed the tomato cage that I'd installed for
the cucumber vines to climb, because the squash vines did not climb it even
though I urged them to do so several times when they were smaller.
8/23/11 Lawn Alternatives Blog Action Day!
The Garden Designer
Round Table and the Lawn Reform Coalition have combined forces today and
have posted 18 idea-packed articles on landscapes with lawn
alternatives. My entry was posted on the Florida Native Plant Society
blog: Sunshine
Mimosa, a lawn Alternative for Florida. From there you can find
links to all the other blog posts. Read them all--some of the lawnless landscapes
are spectacular.
Sunshine mimosa (Mimosa strigillosa) at McGee
Botanical Garden
in Vero Beach. >>
8/17/11 What to do
in the fall garden? Most garden calendars begin in January, which
may work for northern states where virtually no gardening takes place
during winter, but here in Florida, January is the middle of our best
growing season. I think Florida garden calendars should start in
September. Listen to my podcast: Garden
Calendars
University
of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Science (IFAS)
provides recommendations for growing edibles including varieties crops
that work well for Florida: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic_vegetable_gardening.
<<
Now is the time to get your beds ready to plant your lettuces and chard.
These are the beautiful and yummy greens that I grew last fall.. Don't you
want some??
As
a sustainable gardener, I like to use the biomass found on my property or
nearby to enrich or mulch my garden beds. I rake the pine needles from the
streets and cart them home to use as a mulch throughout my vegetable
plots. It lasts for more than one season and it rakes away easily when
it's time to plant the next crop.
Another
source of biomass this year is water spangles (Salvinia minima), an
aquatic fern. It has completely covered our front pond--1/10 of an acre.
We've been scooping out with stiff plastic leaf rakes, but it just closes
in behind wherever we remove it. I'm hoping this fall we can get a
handle on it, but meanwhile what a great addition in our compost and
directly into beds. This fern can absorb a lot of water and that's
important in our sandy soil.
It
was imported into the US for the aquarium trade in the 1920s because of
its ability to clarify water, but now it's listed on the # 1 invasive
plant list for all of Florida. A wading bird probably brought it in on its
legs, but the waders haven't visited lately--they can't see any frogs or
fish because the pond's surface is totally covered.
The pond water underneath the fern is very clear though--normally it's
murky. Listen to my podcast: Invasive
Waterweeds
August 4, 2011 A
Poison is a Poison is a Poison! is my latest entry over on
the Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens. The subtitle could be, Can
Garden Writers be Bought? Sadly, the answer is apparently,
Yes.
This is not the first time I've ranted about poisons in
the landscape or complained about P. Allen Smith and his sponsors. See
"Just Say NO to Poisons" and
“How
NOT to Plant a Tree.”
<< What would happen to this spider, if I sprayed
poisons (organic or not) throughout my landscape? She and many other
insect predators would be dead and those that were not killed by the
poison directly would move out of my yard. :-(
Barbara Damrosch's article, The importance of record-keeping in a successful garden,
in today's Washington Post is a good reminder. We think we'll remember
where and when we planted crops, but we won't. They all merge
together eventually.
August 1, 2011 Surprise
cucumbers! Cucumbers
volunteered in a bed that I'd planted with marigold seed (as a cover
crop to be dug under in late fall to combat the root-knot nematodes).
I'll allow the cucumbers to grow since they are perfectly place at the
back of the bed. I dug a watering swale in front of the seeds, stuck in
a wire tomato cage, and mulched with pine needles. I pulled out 2
seedlings to give the 4 vines room to grow. I can tell that the
cucumbers sprouted from a trench compost layer
I'd
put in, because the length of the seedling stems is about 6". (See
the two that I pulled out that are laid on top of the mulch.) Since my
spring cucumber swales were about 5 feet to the left, a stray cucumber
could have ended up in the area, but it wouldn't have been so deep. Ahh,
the adventures in the garden... you never know where they'll take you.
When you
purchase a copy of my book, 50% of the the royalties are sent
directly to The Nature Conservancy; Florida Chapter. This
may not amount to millions of dollars, but it is symbolic of how
small actions can really make a big difference.
Gil Nelson's "Best Native Plants for Southern Gardens" is filled to the brim with important information on native plants and is a must for any serious gardener in the southeastern region of the country.
Gil Nelson's Best Native Plants book provides
details of 200 readily available native plants including their
best growing conditions, projected sizes, and good companion
plants. You'll be surprised how much you'll rely on this
book as you make your landscape more sustainable. Order
your own copy
The Lawn Reform Coalition
was formed to provide people with many sustainable landscape
ideas.
Its website www.lawnreform.org
has photos, articles and links to other information.
Read
Ginny's 
