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July 27, 2011 Leaffooted bugs on my tomatoes! Both the adults and nymphs are sucking insect pests, so after they posed for my photo shoot, they were dispatched into a plastic container and squashed. Here's their information on the IFAS Featured Creatures website.
<< Our summer harvest two days ago: 2 butternut squash, 7 mild banana peppers, several stems from the Malabar spinach vine, 3 early girl tomatoes, and a dozen stalks from the Egyptian walking onions. The first night we had spinach salad made with the Malabar spinach, tomatoes, 2 of the peppers, and the walking onion greens from the garden. I also included a couple of leaves of red-leaf lettuce and sweet onions from the store. Topped with hard boiled eggs and home-made croutons. We ran out of our own sweet onions a couple of weeks ago. It seemed strange to buy onions in the store again after so many months of onions from the gardens. The second night we had mashed butternut squash and onions fried with garlic from the garden and more of the banana peppers. Very filling. My husband informed me the other day that, so far this year, we've reduced our grocery bill by about 20%--that's real money! And speaking of tomatoes... Most of the tomatoes are toast by this time of year here in north Florida, but these early girls keep producing. They've surpassed the Everglades tomatoes into the summer's heat by quite a bit. But, the only plants that have lasted are those in newly created beds, so maybe there are no resident nematodes to tie their roots into knots or fungal wilt diseases. |
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The rest of our squash crops are done, but the butternut vines keep growing and producing. It's immune to the squash borers that got the zucchinis and the yellow summer squashes and also to the fungal wilts that attacked cucumbers. It's good that we really like them. This photo was taken midday today, so the male flower had already wilted. Since we have so many flowers, I'm thinking of stuffing some of them. Did you know a squash flower needs to be visited by 8 or 9 pollinators before it's fertilized? This is why ecosystem gardening (where you welcome the bugs and their predators) is important. >>
Between the marigolds and the M. spinach, this is a very buzzy place in my gardens. Here's a thoughtful rain garden article by Adrian Higgins in the Washington Post: Rain Garden: A beautiful Solution. Of course you can also read my rain garden articles starting with this one: Rain Lilies for my Rain Gardens. |
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Happy 4th of July! Our vegetable garden in going into the summer doldrums. Today, I removed the cucumbers. We've had a great harvest, but now fungus has set in and the new cukes turn yellow before they are 2" long. As I'm removing crops, I'm planting marigold seeds as a cover crop to chase away the nematodes--this year they've attacked the tomatoes, summer squash, and okra. I'll turn the marigolds into the soil and let them compost for six weeks before planting anything else in the fall. << I bought some Everglades tomato seeds this year and have this one growing in a pot and some others in the ground to see if we can extend the tomato season deeper into the summer. The fruits are tiny, but tasty and since they are open pollinated, I'll save some seeds for next year. The rainy season has finally started. We received 6.94" in June, including 1.98" on the 30th. The rain barrels are full! I was invited to write for "Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens," a group blog with garden writers from all over the country. Here's my post for today: Cheer for the Predators in Ecosystem Gardening. You can read my two previous posts, as well as the posts from the other writers. I'm to post on the 4th each month. Over on The Florida Native Plant Society's blog, I posted a review of Gil Nelson's 2nd (and greatly enhanced) edition of The Trees of Florida. The previous post on the FNPS blog covers a successful local event; A lesson in Outreach by FNPS Ixia Chapter in Jacksonville written by Barbara Jackson. The first draft of my new book, "Growing Vegetables in Florida Organically," is almost done. Yay! I wish you a happy Independence Day. |
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Clockwise: 3 early girl tomatoes, the last zucchini, 2 yellow banana sweet peppers, 3 cucumbers, a dozen purple hyacinth beans, & 4 okra pods. You can see the cucumber vines in the background, which are still blooming and producing like crazy. Tonight we'll have a stir fry using beans, peppers, okra, zucchini, and onions--all from the garden. There are more okra pods and beans in the refrigerator and we have lots of sweet onions that we've dried and stored. I love eating from the garden. Saturday night we had mashed butternut squash and fried onions from the garden. We've saved a significant amount of $$ on our food budget, but the more important benefit, is that we are eating freshly harvested food with more nutrients and no pesticide residues. Hoping for more rain soon, the six rain barrels are close to empty. |
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5/12/11 It's What's for Dinner: Vegetables!! The only ingredients not from the garden are freshly ground pepper, cheese, butter and yogurt. Oh, and the nice glass of Chardonnay. Day 2: We enjoyed a nice tossed salad with leaves from the last crop of lettuce for the season, Swiss chard, sweet onions, walking onion greens, broccoli leaves (from come again plants after the first harvest), chives, wild garlic leaves, carrots (also the last crop of the season), basil, dill. The freshly ground pepper, grated Parmesan cheese, olive oil and vinegar were the only items not from the garden.
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3: Fried squash and a quesadilla Tonight is Day 4: We'll have Chinese cabbage salad made with this beautiful, ruffled cabbage, carrots, onions, onion greens, parsley, and not from the garden; celery, cucumber (but ours are coming), olive oil, sesame oil, vinegar, ground black pepper, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, and Ramen noodles with half the flavor pack. This will carry the two of us for a few days, and by then we'll have more squash to use. |
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May 8, 2011 Happy Mothers Day! My mom and I gardened together and she'd be pleased that I've finally gotten back to my roots! Thanks Mom. Sometimes gardening is a puzzle. I bought and planted these native fall-blooming asters in October, but they are blooming now. What's going on here? I submitted this puzzle to Linda Chalker-Scott of the Garden Professors and she used my asters as this week's quiz: Floral Fuddlement.
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4/21/11 Rain Barrels: Are they Right for You? A few weeks ago Owen Dell in Southern California stirred up a debate about the effectiveness of rain barrels. Well, maybe in his region of the country where they receive a mere 12 inches of rain per year, but here in Florida where we receive 50 inches annually, it's a different story. Here's a summary of the debate on the Garden Professors' blog and be sure to read all the comments. Then listen to my podcast on rain barrels. I love our 6 rain barrels and you can read all about them with extreme detail in my three rain barrel articles starting with this one. |
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4/14/11 Beautiful Edible Gardening: As the prices of produce rise, more folks are thinking about growing more of their own. But those edible gardens don't have to be ugly rectangles in the back yard. There are many beautiful ways to integrate edibles into your front yard. Listen to my podcast Beautiful Edible Gardens. My article, Wide Row Planting and Trench Composting in the Vegetable Garden illustrates how I manage my vegetable gardens. If you're looking for more inspiration and design ideas, I suggest Rosalind Creasy's new edition of Edible Landscaping. When growing vegetables in Florida, mainstream gardening advice provided for cooler climates will not work here. Also, don't depend upon those big box stores to be selling starter seedlings at the proper time either. Listen to my earlier podcast: Inappropriate Plants, and here are some resources on when to plant what in Florida. Vegetable Gardening in Florida by James Stephens was published in 1999, but it is still better than the others for thorough information and remains a good seller even today. Also this agricultural extension document: Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide provides a good timeline. |
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Here's a summary of the conference with links to coverage from last year's conference, previews of two of the field trip areas that I posted over on Florida.com. |
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3/25/11 What to do with trees that have
been mistreated by the grower? The branching is chaotic on this little tree, but I only headed back two of the three leaders at this time--the leaders before pruning lean against each other. While I was happy to see that the tree had lived after its brutal start in my yard, it is still stressed and too much pruning could set it back yet again. The next pruning session will be late fall--eventually I'll cut back the lower branches so that it will have a single trunk. >>
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3/21/11 Make black gold from kitchen scraps in your spare time... Read my new article Wide Row Planting and Trench Composting in the Vegetable Garden. I've been practicing wide-row gardening for my vegetables for several years. It works great in the small spaces where I grow most of my veggies--close to the back door. And my crops get all the nutrients and micronutrients they need because of the wide variety of materials used for my compost. No artificial chemical fertilizers are necessary. |
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3/17/11 Listen to my latest podcast: Inappropriate Plants, which continues my rant on March 3rd. I promised more resources on when to plant what in Florida. Racks of cool weather crops from Bonnie plants for sale in a nearby Home Depot when it was too late to plant them here triggered my rant. My friend in south Florida said she saw the same display down there in planting zone 10, which is ridiculous! >>
An agricultural extension document: Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide provides a good timeline, but you need to scan down the page and eventually you'll get to the times to plant crops in north central and south Florida. And not all crops work here in Florida--for instance asparagus needs an extended winter and most of Florida in most years will not get cold enough to develop a good bed.
Some plants that don't grow here at all are offered. Asparagus needs cold soil in the winter and here in north Florida we do not have a dependable cold period. I heard about one guy in Jacksonville, who covers his asparagus bed with ice from a fish market for six weeks in the winter. But this would not be a sustainable crop here: it's too much work. So why do the merchants sell it? In a north Florida Wal-Mart last week... Why?? >> I'm in the midst of transitioning from cool-weather crops to the summer crops. More to come... |
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3/3/11 I'm a guest ranter for gardenrant.com today where I talk about Unseasonable Offerings from Bonnie Plants. I worry about beginning gardeners who trust that plants offered for sale are the right plants for the season. They'll be upset when those cool-weather crops die off quickly in our hot spring weather. (Here's my podcast on this topic: Inappropriate Plants.) << Coral ardisia, a beautiful invasive plant. This is Invasives Awareness Week and there are plenty of opportunities here in Northeastern Florida to participate this weekend. Today I joined other concerned citizens and pulled coral ardisia (Ardisia crenata) from Clay County Park, Camp Chowenwaw. Over on the Florida Native Plant Society blog I posted Florida's Palms and Disney Wilderness Preserve: A Nature Conservancy Property. |
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2/14/11 Australian Pines: One of Florida's Least Wanted! Australian pines seem to be everywhere in the coastal regions in the bottom half of Florida. Three species of Australian pine (Casuarina spp) have been imported into Florida for various purposes. They were widely planted to soak up the "swamps" in Florida, stabilize canals, and hold beaches. Unfortunately for Florida's ecosystems, the "pines" accomplished all this and more--like seeding prolifically, growing five feet or more per year, producing dense shade, and emitting an herbicide that kills most any other plant that has the nerve to grow within their collective drip lines. They have root nodules, like a legume, that fix nitrogen in poor soils for use as their own fertilizer, and they can tolerate saltiness. Between 1993 and 2005 the populations in Florida quadrupled. What a successful plant! Read my piece over on the Florida
Native Plant Society Blog about why these plants are bad for Florida
and how hard they are to eradicate. |
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2/3/11 Weird roots! Yesterday, I pulled out these large sweet-potato-like roots from the top of our raised septic drainfield. They were getting dangerously close to the drainage pipes. As much as I like these native plants growing in our meadow, they had to go. Know what they are with their fuchsia colored sprouts ready to take off again? They're pokeweed roots (Phytolacca americana) and they've done very well in this sandy dry area. One grew to more than 20 feet tall as it leaned against some tree branches. See my post over on the Florida Native Plant society blog: Pokeweed: A Bird-Friendly Native The rains have come--more than two inches in a day. |
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1/27/11 While I wrote about water science back in October, my follow-up Water Science podcast was posted today. As promised here's the link to the article on Water Science for Gardeners that explains the chemistry of water and how and why gardeners can use this information to be more successful in their gardeners. The other water-related article over on the Florida Native Plant Society Blog, titled We ALL live in a Watershed shows some of the best water resources in Florida and explains some of the problems in paradise. |
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1/19/11 My first post on the new Lawn Reform Coalition Blog: St. Augustine Grass: Native or Not... St. Augustine grass has been described as a seashore pioneer plant for centuries, but is the grass that is so widely used for southern lawns still a native? |
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Vegetable
Gardening in Florida
