Category Archives: Gardening by Month

Mar22

Spring Vegetable Garden Planting

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‘Jackson Wonder’ bean seeds

It was a beautiful day in Florida to plant some beans in my backyard garden. Here in northern Florida we are experiencing warm weather, so I am eager to plant spring crops in my garden. Not only did I plant the ‘Jackson Wonder’ beans pictured, but I also planted ‘Contender’ green beans and ‘Roma II’ beans.

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Since my garden expansion, my rows are much longer. I stretched yarn between two sticks and used that to help me make my rows straight. Now I pray for warm weather and soft rain showers. I still have some more varieties to plant, but I especially wanted to get the ‘Contender’ beans into the ground. They seemed to have a good germination rate, even when I planted them a bit early last year.

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collards

My final gardening of the evening was harvesting some collards to go with dinner.

Hopefully I will have some fresh green beans and yellow squash soon! Spring gardening in Florida is so exciting!

Mar20

Happy Spring!

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Spring is easily my favorite season. I love the warmer weather and the flowers that arrive. I treasure the flowers I have right now, as they are some of the first of the season.

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This is probably the most common spring flower in this area, the azalea. I love their exuberant, albeit short-lived displays.

Can you guess what this next flowering plant is? Look closely at the buds; you may recognize them. Think vegetable.

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Did you guess broccoli? Look again for the little florets. The broccoli that we recognize is actually unopened flower buds. Neat, isn’t it?

How about this one? If you read my post “Getting Seedlings Ready for Transplant”, then you may remember what vegetable produces these flowers.

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These delicate flowers are from the daikon radish. They are also edible and have a mild peppery radish flavor.

I can save their seeds later, but for now I am happy to see them bloom and am glad to have them attract the pollinators that will be so important to good yields in the garden later.

Happy Spring! What do you love about spring? Have you started planting yet?

I helped a retired couple get started on their raised bed today, pictures will be posted  soon!

 

 

Mar5

March Garden To-Do List

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Spring should be here very soon! March is an exciting month for gardening in the Florida panhandle. It’s time to get new plants established and weeds under control before the intense heat arrives. Here’s my to-do list for the month.

1. Till Garden Expansion 2014. DONE! See the whole addition here.

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2. Mulch the new garden ASAP! If you see a wild-eyed lady with a crazy ponytail picking up bags of leaves, it’s probably me. I’m going to continue to use leaves as mulch in my gardens.

3. Extend fence. I will post a tutorial on how to make your own soon. My fence costs very little, keeps the dog out, lets precious sunlight through, and requires no digging.

4. Assemble raised bed for pole beans and melons. I’m really excited about this addition. I’m planning to trellis the pole beans on a teepee for vertical interest and to add some flowers for color.

5. Plant seeds of green beans, cucumbers, squash, and melons directly in the garden. I will plant these in late March, after it warms up a bit. If you put seeds into the ground too early, germination will be poor and your little plants will struggle. If you could ask my poor little green beans from last year, they would tell you all about that story. 😦

I’ve already started tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. They should be ready to go into the ground late March too. If you want to start your own, you can see how to start seeds here. Here in zone 8b, seed starting should be done right away (if you haven’t done so already) or you can buy transplants later. For an exhaustive list of when to plant various crops, visit the University of Florida’s planting calendar.

6. Mulch front flower beds with cypress mulch. I like the looks of cypress mulch, so I use that in the front. I want to put a thick layer on before all the weeds start growing.

7. Put ponytails on the cauliflower. DONE! 

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Aren’t they cute? This is called “blanching” and it keeps the sun off of the little cauliflowers. Because of the little ponytails, they will be white rather than yellow when it is time to harvest. They’ll be edible either way, but I prefer for them to be a crisp white.  I used rubber bands, but you could also use twine to accomplish the same purpose. Just be sure that it’s not too tight.

I think that’s it for now.  Did I forget anything? What are you planning to get done this month?

Mar1

What Have I Done?!

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Last year, I remember thinking “What have I done?!” as I watched my husband till the ground for this corner garden.

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Pretty big, right? Approximately 21’x23′ as of yesterday. This garden (which is finishing up its fall and winter crops) and the “shed bed” kept us in fresh vegetables for much of the summer.

This spring, I have even more ambitious goals. I want to produce most of our vegetables this year in our backyard. With that in mind, I planned this garden expansion. I hope to can homemade spaghetti sauce and salsa, and to freeze some of those fresh green beans for later.

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So, we rented a tiller again.

I wanted it to be an even 50 feet long so…

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Yikes! Look at all that! That garden MORE THAN DOUBLED today!!

I had the same thought today as I did last year, “What have I done?!”

My dog, Leif, is probably wondering about my sanity.

Don’t worry- I have a plan. I have seedlings of tomatoes(8 varieties), eggplants, and marigolds. I have plenty of seeds for green beans (I’m going to be planting at least 5 varieties), pickling cucumbers, cantaloupe, ‘Sugar Baby’ watermelon, and squash(zucchini, acorn,white pattypan, and yellow squash). I will have plenty of ‘California Wonder’ bell peppers too, if all goes well.

I want to try a new fruit too, the ground cherry. It supposedly grows like a tomato, grows its fruit in a husk like a tomatillo, and tastes like a pineapple. Sounds interesting!

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So what do you think? Am I missing anything? My marbles, perhaps?

Feb28

My Florida Garden in February

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I love being able to go outside on a winter afternoon to harvest vegetables. Often we are able to eat vegetables that were growing in the ground an half hour before dinner. You can’t get much fresher than that! We have been enjoying delicious root vegetables like turnips and daikon radishes, as well as nutritious leafy greens.

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I love the purple and white on these turnips.

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The daikon radishes above are pretty easy to grow. Most seem to just  use the roots, but the greens are edible too. They seem like turnip greens to me, only a bit milder. I love crops that are edible above and below the ground!

Much of my Florida backyard garden is waiting for some consistent warmth. I have two gardens: the “shed bed”, which is shady for a good part of the day; and a larger, sunnier garden in the corner of the backyard.

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“Shed bed” with its fall/winter crops of kale, daikon radish, onions, broccoli, garlic, collards, and other greens such as Swiss chard and lettuce. We can eat greens a few times a week now by just harvesting the outer leaves. Kale is so tasty cooked with just a little olive oil, garlic, and kosher salt. Yum! Just the thing to round out a hearty winter meal.

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See how the leaf mulch keeps the weeds under control in the picture above? I seldom have to weed over here.

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This corner garden is just hanging on with its onions, few turnips and rutabagas, cauliflower, and broccoli. Soon it will be full of tomatoes, green beans, and eggplants.

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This broccoli is “buttoning”, or forming little broccoli florets rather than large heads. I think the snow and ice that we experienced here in the Florida Panhandle stressed it out a bit. My daughter doesn’t mind though, she eats them raw.

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Isn’t that just the cutest little cauliflower you’ve ever seen? I had some last year that turned out to be very yummy so I have high hopes for this year. Hopefully they will reach full size by the middle of April.

The corner bed was the big expansion last year. I remember indicating an area roughly 23’x25′ to my husband, then watching him till under this huge corner of the backyard and thinking,”What have I done?!”

I filled it though, and last summer we enjoyed homemade spaghetti sauce, tender eggplant, fresh green beans, and crisp bell peppers. For most of the summer I hardly bought vegetables. It was worth it!

This year, I plan to double the size of that garden.

Ambitious, yes, I know. Either that, or slightly crazy. What do you think?

Feb28

February Garden To-Do List

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Short answer: Getting ready for spring! If I can get the right plants started now, I’ll have a great start on the season. We have just a few month of moderate warm before the blasting heat kills the tomatoes in June. If I plant too early, or if it gets cold unexpectedly, the poor little plants may suffer and I may have to start all over again. It’s a risk I’m willing to take as I try to avoid succumbing to cabin fever.

I’ve started tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants from seed this year. I start mine in empty plastic cell packs that I salvaged from my local Lowe’s. When the plant starts are beyond clearance, they end up in trash bins or recycle racks. My cashier asked me to dump the dying plants out with their soil first, then let me take as many as I wanted.
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Dill seedlings- hoping for great pickles this year!
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Little tomato seedlings. BLTs seem so far away…
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Baby cilantro. Nothing like homemade salsa!

It’s also a great time to weed and mulch. The weeds are small, so I’m getting them under control now and then will cover the bare areas with mulch. I use leaves as mulch in my vegetable gardens. They’re a great addition to the soil as they decompose and they are free, too! Start looking around, some of your neighbors may have been so kind as to bag some up for you.
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See how the kale doesn’t have many weeds? I also like how it helps to keep the vegetables cleaner. Dirt and sand are less likely to splash on them during a hard rainstorm.
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The Swiss chard likes the mulch too. I hate weeding, so I try to be proactive and smother the ground around my plants.

In my flowerbed, though, I plan to have so many flowers growing and acting as “living mulch” to shade out the weeds. I’d much rather spend my gardening moolah on seeds or pretty flowerpots than bark chips.

Some new flowers that I’m starting: milkweed (for the butterflies), painted daisies, nasturtiums, black-eyed Susans, and blanket flowers. I loved my zinnias and petunias last year and am planting them again.

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Zinnias were great for attracting butterflies.
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I was able to save some of the tiny petunia seeds from my Mother’s Day hanging baskets last year. Special memories are connected to those flowers.

I’ve also been sketching out where I want to put everything. I love to plant on paper before I start digging in the ground. Literal “back of the envelope calculations” and rough sketches help me avoid the temptation to over-plant.
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I may be the only one who understands the scribbling, but it helps me get organized rather than just plopping plants in the ground.

So I’m starting seeds, weeding, mulching, and planning the garden in February. I’m getting ready for some fresh tomatoes! What are you looking forward to from your garden??