The Garden Center

[Cassia]

Cassia, have you tried Seyval Blanc?

Maybe in a wine glass :0). I have yet to try to grow any grapes.

[aitm]

Getting ready to put mine "down" for the summer. Tried growing brussel sprouts this year, was going good till we got hammered by a hail storm two weeks ago, cleared everything right to the ground. So too late to replant in central fl. Now it's time to Solarize the gardens and start looking for next years soil amendments, last year production was not great and his years was worse, so being in mostly sand, I have to add lots of amendments every two years to get some soils eventually that will sustain itself. Broccoli went gangbuster this year and green bean always produce well but some other veggies struggle.

[Cassia]

Getting ready to put mine "down" for the summer. Tried growing brussel sprouts this year, was going good till we got hammered by a hail storm two weeks ago, cleared everything right to the ground. So too late to replant in central fl. Now it's time to Solarize the gardens and start looking for next years soil amendments, last year production was not great and his years was worse, so being in mostly sand, I have to add lots of amendments every two years to get some soils eventually that will sustain itself. Broccoli went gangbuster this year and green bean always produce well but some other veggies struggle.

Yeah, Florida is a beach. We had some sort of small-scale, algae-related fish-kill in the swamp that adjoins our pond in the rain season last year. We buried some of those poor things in our raised beds, so I think that really made for good cool weather veggies. Gonna try cabbage, radish, and brussels sprouts this fall besides the usual cool weather lettuce, onions, carrots.....

[aitm]

Every veggie "left over" is doomed to my compost pile, leaves and dead weeds and smaller sticks as well. Anything to add nutrients to the damn sand. To those of you new to gardening don't put any "according to the experts" non-vegetative material such as scrap  Meats or dairy products as they tend to chase away worms, all almighty compost makers. I have no worms and may try adding some, but the yearly "solarizing" which is nothing more than covering the gardens with plastic to heat up the soils to kill bugs and weed seeds may also drive out the good bugs and worms. Florida has, well, where I live, shity soils for veggie growing, but I'm still learning, and by the time I die, I may, know what I am doing.

[Cassia]

Every veggie "left over" is doomed to my compost pile, leaves and dead weeds and smaller sticks as well. Anything to add nutrients to the damn sand. To those of you new to gardening don't put any "according to the experts" non-vegetative material such as scrap  Meats or dairy products as they tend to chase away worms, all almighty compost makers. I have no worms and may try adding some, but the yearly "solarizing" which is nothing more than covering the gardens with plastic to heat up the soils to kill bugs and weed seeds may also drive out the good bugs and worms. Florida has, well, where I live, shity soils for veggie growing, but I'm still learning, and by the time I die, I may, know what I am doing.

You are so right. It is a very scientific, fascinating endeavor, gardening. I gave up on the traditional up-north type veggie plot. I only plant berry trees, bananas, pineapples and citrus direct in the ground where it is high. All the veg are in raised beds or those large fabric pots filled with compost, sand and some of the black swamp muck we are lucky to have out back in the dense maple woods under the carpet of leaves and needles. After that I top-off with yard trash like wood chips, leaves, grass, straw or more compost. After a season or two it goes back in the compost pile that gets smoking hot to kill the baddies. I also use pond water sometimes. We really hate buying dirt, but I admit a few times sometimes we get lazy and got a big bail of peat moss to help fill a bed.

The nice thing about fabric pots is they have handles and we can drag them into the barn for a hurricane, flood or a freeze night. It helps that we have a green compact tractor/loader and its flatbed trailer.

[Cassia]

Gonna grab the camera more often for my morning coffee in the garden. I gladly let the wildlife share in the bounty.

[Cassia]

Geez, this is a typical daily tomato haul. I have been using pond water. Plants have all toppled over and I just let them go a-vining, LOL.

[Cassia]

Well, the NADApeno hybrids were ready to sample. Sweet with barely discernable spice. How about some Zero-alarm chili?
Since they are hybrids, I am curious what would grow from their seed. Probably come out hot. I may give it a go just to see.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Maybe in a wine glass :0). I have yet to try to grow any grapes.

Maybe in a wine glass :0). I have yet to try to grow any grapes.

I'm an ardent red oenophile but the seyval is ... lovely.

[Cassia]

I threw a few okra seeds from a supermarket okra into a planter. Little did I know they were GIANT OKRA, lol. Every three days I have harvested 3 or 4 fruits off these bad boys.




Planted a few super-mini tomatoes in tiny pots. Be nice if they work out.

[Cassia]

Watch yer step!

We are going bananas with some Dwarf Cavendish from Etsy

[Cassia]

So cool. There is a wave of people in Florida doing market gardens in their yards. This guy does very well, like 5K a week in-season. He puts the garden to sleep in Summer with a carpet of sweet tater and black-eyed peas.

[Cassia]

Usually, I pretty much give up on the garden in the dead of Summer. This year I still have small daily harvests from various heat-hardy varieties, plus I counted four softball-sized Seminole Pumpkins, fingers crossed.

We fixed up an old flatbed trailer and with a tarp and a rope we stopped by the recycle center for a full yard of composted soil for some new winter beds. $25 is fair but Bobby laughed and said compared to Home Depot, it's dirt cheap.

[Cassia]

Seminole pumpkins


Our DIY Water cart

[Mike Cl]

Seminole pumpkins


Our DIY Water cart

What a memory shaker that pump is!!!  As a kid at my grandparents little farm I remember that type of pump next to the kitchen sink.  Had to prime it to get it to work, so there was a little glass next to the pump that had to have water in it--that was the first job; fill that glass just after the pump became useable.  I hadn't thought of that in ages!!!