Supposed to be Raspberries

Raspberries.  Hmm.  Well, I totally messed them up and am now avoiding them because I don't know where to go from here.

We made a nice little box for the berry plants and I threw in some tomato cages to keep them under control.  I knew the canes would get long so I planned ahead.  Go me!  Those things get SO long. They bent over the cages and wherever the tips found soil, they rooted.  So now I have plants rooted at their bases and at their tips.  One even found a potted plant and is now stuck in there.  I'm inclined to just leave them alone  since I'm feeling lazy.  Can it be good for the plant to be rooted on both ends?  

Eat Your Sprouts!

Brussels sprouts.  Well, I've learned a few things, that's for sure. First of all, I always thought they were "brussel sprouts", but a quick search shows that "brussels sprouts" is the correct way to spell them.  Alrighty then.  Secondly, I learned that I'll be purchasing these guys in the store whenever I get a hankering for them.

In a limited space garden like we have, they just don't make sense.  The foliage is massive and shades out everything around it, not a good use of out square footage.  They do rank extremely high in the entertainment  department though.  Fast growing foliage, bright green colors and quite a few growing sprouts makes this plant a hit for kids or those that love to watch things grow.  But the amount of  food per plant and the gigantic footprint make these fellas lousy bed mates for a small time gardener like me.  I didn't find any real advantage in flavor either as compared to their store bought cousins., another reason to skip them over next time around.  I'd much rather grow more broccoli instead, which is way better out of the garden then in the store.  Broccoli winning a vegetable battle?  You heard it here first folks!

Bad Breath Section

Here is a close up of the onion and garlic section, both making a first time appearance in the garden.  We were pretty brave this time around, trying out so many new things.  It's been fun!  
For some reason I thought I'd be able to tell them apart so I didn't label anything.   Yikes!  As  you can see for yourself, they all look exactly alike.


The theory with the onions is that we plant them all at once then harvest as needed.  The first few to be picked will be more like a spring onion and the others just grow bigger and get picked at various stages. All delicious and no storage needed, we would essentially be storing them outside in the ground.  But, I forget they're there and I buy scallions from the store all the time.    So much for that plan.  Onion soup anyone?

Clean Up

Lots of things to do even in our tiny raised beds.  Since room is at a premium, it's always wise to trim and thin where we can.  Most of these are brussel sprout leaves, those plants are trying to take over. The leaves are gigantic and shade everything else out. I highly recommend putting them in a place where you are not trying to grow other things because they get big...and tall...and wide...and bushy.  Who knew?  

The yellow spalsh of color is a broccoil head that flowered from the heat we've been having.  The flowers are actually edible and I saw online that they are considered a delicacy, as in expensive to buy.  And here I am throwing it away!  We definately eat the brocc that has a few flowers on it but Hubbie is not too interested in all flowers like the one here, so out it goes.  

Peppers - Disease Report II

Disease has run rampant. I mean RAMPANT!  I planted quite a few pepper plants and had lots of plans for those peppers, but it's not to be. At least this time around.  It all started with a favor to a friend.  Do you recall the mystery pepper from Puerto Rico?  Well, I finally got one of the mystery pepper seeds to grow and it just never stopped.  It got HUGE!  The friend who provided the seeds wanted his picture taken with the thing to show his friends because it was the biggest he had ever seen.  Go me!  But, the thing got so big that it shaded out all of the other peppers around it. Moisture plus shade in Florida means disease.

I'm thinking this is gray leaf spot. If not that, then something very close and they're pretty much all treated the same. So I diligently clipped all of the affected leaves and disposed of them off site to control the spread. And....nothing.  Just more and more spots.  I'm pulling the plug on them this weekend. Poor things have been hanging in there but no real growth and hardly any peppers.

The seasons coming to a close anyway, so I won't have to wait too long to try again.

Scallions From Seed

I had lots of fun with seeds in this garden, including these little fellers. These scallions youngins were just dropped in the ground with little attention to detail and up they came.  They're awefully slow growing compared to everything else in the garden.  I literally planted boc choy at the same time and have harvested AND eaten it in the time it has taken these guys to grow. And they're still not ready.  Sigh.  At least they're cheap to buy at the grocery store.

Evicted Strawberry Plants

When I was young, I remember my Aunt Mary having some berry plants and I thought how wonderful it would be to have my own one day when I grew up.  So last season I planted 6 strawberry plants. Doesn't sound like many but I don't have a large garden and relatively speaking, these plants were given the most space of any plant in the garden so far.  But remember, this was a childhood dream, so they were treated like kings!

They say that you can grow them in Florida as a perennial, just plant once and they'll keep on producing.  The truth?  Who knows!  These guys went wild last season, growing all sorts of greens, sending runners out and forming new plants anywhere and everywhere....then they just stopped.  Went dormant maybe?   They got thin looking, lost lots of leaves and stopped flowering.  But with space at a premium, nothing is allowed to be in stand-by mode, so they were evicted and relocated into a few pots.  Looking nice and green, will they flower and fruit?  Let's wait and see....