Spring Planting Part II

This winter was incredibly mild with only one frost.  I covered the tomato plants that night and everything survived.  So, I have been holding onto my tomato plants - and the only real successful one was the Yellow plum - it is still going!  The others tried to hold on, but I believed they succumbed to root-knot nematodes - they are common in Florida soils, and are the impetus for crop rotation.  I have pictured here one of the tomatoes that I pulled up after it stopped producing well, and you can see clearly the nodules that the nematodes create when they feast on the roots of plants.

So, despite my yellow plum's continued production, I am going to start anew with tomatoes in the South bed.  Here is my master plan for planting this weekend:

I'm a little late on planting peppers and tomatoes, so I will be planting some seeds, and some starts.  

Here's what the garden currently looks like: 

large bed, with corn, sugar snaps, (volunteer) peanuts & sweet potatoes, and weeds

East bed, with carrots and last scraggly yellow plum tomato

South bed with collards, leeks, green onions, and bitter, bolting lettuce

Most of the plants should be in by the end of Easter sunday.  I'm excited for spring garden round II - it will give me time to think of a plan for the summer and the inevitable army worm onslaught.  :)  

Ambrosia beetle/Avocado deaths

Check out this article on the ambrosia beetle, an insect that is threatening Florida's avocado industry.  Our own tree seems to have been affected:

The large tree is the avocado - presumably at least 30 years old - the tree next to it is the grapefruit tree.  Notice the browning leaves - my hope is that our tree is vivacious enough to survive!  

Potatoes in Sacks

This spring I decided to grow potatoes in burlap sacks.  The logic is simple:

1.  Fill sack with a small amount of dirt, plant seed potato.
2.  As potato grows, add dirt to stimulate more tubers.
3.  When potato plant is ready for harvesting (in 85-110 days), cut open sack and voila!  Easy harvesting!

Sacks have arrived! 

First round of dirt, and potato plant!   

I've decided to grow potatoes in between our garden beds.  The idea is that we will eventually mulch over this area to kill of the grass - this will solve weed problems and mowing problems.

So... skip ahead to today... I have added dirt once.    

As you can see in the before and after picture, mulch is needed, as the cardboard tends to let grass through.  Will continue updating on this potato planting method - I'm excited to see how it turns out!  

Planting Day in February

 Today I ordered 12 burlap sacks - I plan on planting 8 potatoes and 4 sweet potatoes.  We've laid down cardboard in between the large bed and the south and east beds - and that will be the sack/container garden.  I've planted some herbs in there as well.  :)  Here are some pics from the current garden.

The last blooming sunflower

The row of sugar snaps

We have baby cauliflowers!  

Tasty lettuce we have 3-4 good producing plants, and a ton more seedlings coming up

Here's a nifty trick... when you get scallions from the store, instead of throwing them away, just put the bulbs in an old jar with water.  When they've grown a little green stalk, throw them in the garden!  These are some we got from publix back in November.  They're doing great (better than my seeds, I should point out)

This is not in the garden, but from a lovely flowering tree nearby... I've never seen a flower like it!

The tomatoes had grown in on themselves, and were in pretty sorry shape, so I staked them an fertilized them... not sure if they'll bounce back or anything, but if they keep producing, I'll let them keep growing. 

Recipe for home-made sweet potato fries

Home-Made Sweet Potato Fries

2-3 Sweet Potatoes
1/2 cup of Brown Sugar
1 tsp of cinnamon
Salt
1 tbsp butter
1 cup of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cut the sweet potatoes into thin strips, and toss them into a roasting pan with half the brown sugar, the cinnamon, and the butter (cut up into pieces and spread evenly throughout the pan).  Stir to make sure everything is spread evenly.  Cover with tin foil and bake in the oven for about 20-30 minutes.  Depending on how thin you cut your strips, you may need more or less.

Sweet potatoes just came out of the oven!

After you pull the sweet potatoes out of the oven, heat up some olive oil in a wok.  A few at a time, put the sweet potato strips in the wok until slightly browned (2-3 minutes).  Pull them out, and place them in a bowl lined with a paper towel.  Toss them with salt and the remaining brown sugar.

Eat once they are cool enough to handle!  Yum.

Irrigation Fixed!

Purchased another hose, timer, and sprinkler head for the opposite side of the garden.  The south bed has been revived completely!  We now have healthy Broccoli, collards, lettuce, and onions!

I was surprised at how different the broccoli tastes when its fresh - it was SO good.  After a little fertilizer, we have a bunch of new heads!  

This is the garden as we pulled up the sweet potatoes - one plant took over the whole garden!  Think I'm going to try growing them in a burlap sack next time around... 

Pictures of our bounty - for the majority of the fall season we were getting roughly 8-10 tomatoes per day, avocados daily from the tree, collards, 1 beet (ha), and every once and awhile we get broccoli.  We currently average about 1 egg per day.  

I've put up a trellis for sugar snap peas...  still have some sunflowers!  Also planted beets, radishes, and an early crop of corn.  Heard from some friends that it is the best when its early.  Not sure how it will fare, but hoping for little/no frost from here on out.  We'll see if we get lucky.   

Here's a look at the garden post-fall crop.  Tomatoes were damaged by frost, but are still producing well. 

This is the yellow plum, my most productive plant

The south bed, happily flourishing with new irrigation. 

Collards... wish I enjoyed eating them more than I do!  Will put up an awesome recipe for collard and broccoli greens slaw when I have the opportunity to make them.  

Winter Garden, Prep for the spring...

So... a couple of updates.  We inherited two more chickens!  As for my fall garden, it was mostly ravaged by army worms.  Here is a run-down of fall successes and failures:

Need to be improved:

1.  Irrigation.  I'm fairly certain that lack of regular good coverage in our irrigation system caused a lot of our plants to poop out.  Namely:  Peppers (didn't grow), cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, corn, lettuce broccoli, collards, and onions.  Yikes!

2.  Three-sisters method planting - the corn, which was a worm favorite, was then choked out by the beans... which were then eaten by another bug.  :(

I was happy with:

1.  Tomatoes - I purchased 4 varieties that were very successful.  All were smallish - Yellow plum (by far the most productive), 2 red grape, 1 red cherry.  I still struggle with getting big tomatoes to ripen successfully.  Considering that I spend 3-4$ for a basket that normally goes bad after a bit, these were definitely worth the money.

2.  Sweet potatoes - One plant took over the 20ft bed and we had at least 8 pounds of sweet potatoes!  We gave some away, ate a whole bunch... and still have some left over!