Volunteers

Every year in Dad's garden he would have "volunteers" come up. He was the first person I ever heard refer to self seeded plants as volunteers. I've since heard just about every gardener use that term.  When I was young I thought that he was so clever for coming up with that......but maybe it's been around a while. In my mind anyway, he gets full credit. Up above is a lettuce volunteer next to some scallions.  We didn't plant any lettuce seeds at all so these are seeds that dropped from the last garden and germinated by themselves.

Here is a tomato plant that volunteered to sprout on it's own. I'm quick to pluck these guys out though because I read that the fruit is not great from a tomato that's come up like this. Not sure if there's any truth to that, but since space is an issue in my little raised beds, it had to go.

More lettuce of  a different variety. These I'll let grow because they happened to come up in an area that's not a space issue.

Garden Update - Couple Weeks Ago

 I'm a little behind on the posting, so this was the garden a few weeks ago.   I remember aiming for March 17 as my planting date but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I'm not quite sure how old the garden is, maybe 4 weeks total?   So let's say this was the garden at 2 weeks old. In the top pic you can see the pickling cucumbers starting to go up the trellis and some seeds coming up. Boy those scallions look scrawny!

 This box has the strawberries on the far end with the lemon cucumbers. I over seeded the cukes and I think every single one germinated. I probably should thin them out but I hate doing that, if it sprouted, I wanna give it a chance. I may regret that when the bugs and diseases start running rampant and everything s packed so close together. 

 Speaking of bugs, something has been nibbling on the eggplant already. A little leafminer damage as well, that's the white wiggly lines.

Here are the lemon cukes. Surprisingly hardy with thick sturdy stems in such young plants. The regular pickling cukes are usually falling all over themselves at this height.  Lookin' good!

And of course the marigolds that I started myself from seed. Saved $10.00 by saving my own seeds and starting them on my own. Marigolds are SUPER easy and well worth doing yourself. Interestingly, I loved the flowers that had an orange center and dark red/orange border so I only saved seeds from those specific flowers. And look what I got, everything but the one I saved! 

In the Ground

This post is a little behind seeing as the plants have been in the ground a few weeks now. Oops! Just wait till I post an update because these little bitty plants and seeds have been growing like gang busters!

 Along this trellis I planted a few lemon cucumber seeds. I planted quite a few in the hopes that at least a decent amount of plants come up.

 Here's the gypsy pepper, we planted 3 of them. They'll grow into smaller sized bell peppers but not as mini as the yummy peppers last time.

 Wilty little eggplant, we planted 2 of 'em. I planted the Japanese type so that we'll get a few smaller vegetables instead of one or two big ones.

Here's a regular old green cucumber, can't wait to make more pickles!

Since the Big Beef was good to us in the last garden, we planted one of them again. I considered other varieties (and there are tons out there) but I'll stick with the tried and true for now. I only planted one since we were bombarded with the crop from 3 plants last time. 

Hot banana peppers, 3 of them! Can't wait!  I'm gonna can up a bunch of these in a brine and try to make my own banana pepper rings.  We love that spicy, vinegary flavor.

 An old stand by is the jalapeno, i planted 3 of those too.   We canned up a bunch of these to make pickled jalapeno slices and we'll probably do the same with this crop.

Hot cherry peppers. This was my "something new" for the garden this time around.  I have plans to stuff these little babies with some cheese and broil them in olive oil to make an appetizer. That spicy oil for dipping bread into is won.der.ful.

Oh well, I lied, there are a few "something new's" in the garden!  Here are some onion sets we're trying out. I don't plan to really get any  big onions out of these, I think it's even the wrong time of year for them but we eat tons of green onions/scallions and these will do just fine for that.

Next to the onions are some seeds. There are 2 rows of scallion seeds and three rows of carrots. The plan is that the onion sets will have a  head start then the scallion seeds will grow and make a second harvest. Each row of carrots is a different kind, even a purple one! Woo Hoo!

I've Got the Good Stuff

 Since we used the county compost to fill the boxes, we thought a little extra of the good stuff would give us a leg up on the next growing season. We've got mushroom compost....

 Composted cow manure....

 and earthworm castings (worm poop).  Three kinds of poop should just about do it. Each one brings it's own brand of beneficial bacteria and fertilizer to the party.

 Here are the plants! We've got 1 Big Beef tomato, 2 sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, 3 jalapenos, 3 hot banana peppers, 3 gypsy sweet bell peppers (small variety of bell pepper), 2 Japanese eggplant, 2 hot cherry peppers, onion sets and seeds, 2 cucumbers, lemon cucumber seeds, carrot seeds and a few ground cherry plants I started from seeds. Can't wait!

Saying Goodbye

 It's time to say goodbye to the fall/winter garden, making way for the spring/summer garden.  This has been the most difficult decision for me. Up in zone 6a New York where I grew up, there was one growing season defined heavily by the onslaught of winter, frost and snow.   When the ground thawed, you planted. When the frost came and the snow fell, it was time to pull up the garden until next year.Simple.

Here in Florida it's a much different story. There is no major frost, there is no major snow fall, no extended period of damaging cold temperatures.   So what's a girl to do?   Hem and haw until the last possible moment, that's what.  I started by looking at the garden, really looking to see if there was any reason to keep it going. The green parts were all lush, perky and thriving but after a few weeks of really looking, I noticed that there were very few new flowers coming up.  Only the grape tomato was really showing new flowers, everything else was just chugging along. So that was the deciding factor, lack of new flowers. No new flowers, no new fruit.

As I was ripping out the plants, I was very relieved to find all sorts of hints that I had done the right thing. The jalapeno and banana pepper plants were getting more and more mold spots and the tomatoes showed increasing signs of cut worm damage on the leaves and young tomatoes. 

 Going, going, gone....

This is the right bed all neat and clean. The left bed still has strawberry plants in it that I'll keep for the time being.  Out came the irrigation system so we could add some goodies to the soil. 

Temporary Solution to Feeding the Birds

So, remember when I mentioned that the birdies were dinning on my ripe tomatoes? Well, I looked into a few different remedies but was astounded by the conflicting info online. Some said the birdies wanted water and to put out a bird bath and they'd leave the red globes alone, some said a bird bath only attacks more birds who learn from each other and will do even more damage.  I read about bagging each tomato with a mesh bag as it ripens which would be OK I guess but alot of work on top of the price of the mesh bags, so not my first choice. Then I read about bird netting but there is a trick to even that.  Drape it too close and the birds just sit on it and peck right through. Drape it too loosely at the bottom and the birds can get trapped inside and freak out creating a mess of destroyed plants, poop and feathers. Drape too far away and they'll just hop in, have a taste and hop right back out. Not to mention that bird netting is also pricy, so I decided not to mess with that until I can read more on it. So, what did I decide to do?

Pick 'em early. Now, some may say that there's nothing like a vine ripened tomato and I would agree. But I want some of those tomatoes too and letting them become fully ripe out there was a death sentence for my enjoyment. Granted the birds didn't eat much but I'm not interested in their sloppy seconds, who knows what those beaks are carrying around.  So I'm picking them early and letting them ripen on the counter, still tastier than anything coming out of the grocery store and no birds are harmed in the process.

The Big Beauty

 This was the biggest and most beautiful Big Beef in the whole garden.  Isn't she purdy?

Gone to Seed

Pretty mizuna lettuce gone to seed.  The weather has warmed up significantly and we're getting into the mid and high 80s which is affecting the lettuce crop. It's all bolting but boy is it a pretty sight!

Lettuce is Pretty

Lettuce is pretty. It really is. I know I say everything is my favorite, but growing lettuce is right up there.

Look at these shapes and textures!  Even the lettuce that  goes to seed is incredibly interesting.  

I'm temped to let it all grow wild to see what happens.  

Close Encounter

mizuna mustard greens

Do you know how hard it is to identify lettuce?

It is VERY difficult!