Late Fall Update

It has been a while since my last update. The fall and early winter is always the busiest time of year. Gardening tasks have been a small part of my life lately and football and parties have taken over. This has been the best harvest season that I have ever had as a backyard gardener though. I still have lots of garden failures but many more successes this season. Here is an update on what has been going on.

Harvest
We have had and still have a great crop of Juliet and Cherry Tomatoes. I have not been keeping tally on our harvest but lets just say that we have been non-stop eating tomatoes and I cannot see the end in site at this time.

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The tomatoes are taking up most of one of my square foot gardens and a large part of the second one. In spite of this, I was able to harvest a couple of other vegetables. We got one very nice eggplant that we ended up giving to my mother in law at Thanksgiving (we haven’t got an update on how it tasted). We also harvested a couple of small green peppers. I have always struggled with green peppers. There is something nutrient wise that they are lacking and I have not done research to figure out what that is. Figuring out how to grow better green peppers may be my springtime project.

We also have collards and kale ready to harvest. Here is a picture of one of our collard plants.

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Squashes are not really growing well either this season. It seems like we have better luck when my husband randomly drops squash seeds throughout the yard than when I actually attempt to plant them in a garden. To their defense, I have not been hand pollinating them. I guess sometimes you cannot rely on nature to do it. We do have one acorn squash that looks promising, but that is one my husband randomly planted.

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Baby it’s cold outside
Last winter we had unseasonable cold temperatures and it looks like this winter may be following suit. We have already had at least one night of freezing temperatures and there are more to come next week. Typically we don’t see freezing temperatures in central Florida until at least January or February. I have and plan to continue to cover my square foot gardens for as long as I can but I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. Some of the vegetables won’t mind the cold temperatures but the tomatoes will definitely die off if I don’t protect them.

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Future Plans
I am getting ready to start seeds again for some cold weather crops. I might be too late for some of them but I am going to try anyway. With my Juliet and Cherry Tomato success, I might try to grow some Roma tomatoes as well…..we’ll see……

Les Baux

Les Baux-de-Provence

In 2010 we had a day trip to Les Baux-de-Provence in France. We arrived via a 40 minute bus ride from Arles, the town we were staying in. The lure of Les Baux is its facinating castle fortification at the top of the hill and its delightful medieval town below. After a day wandering around the castle and town, we gorged ourselves with some yummy cookies.

One of the interesting things about European history is their use of pigeons for eating and messaging. You can see the holes in the structure for the birds.

Notre Dame and Père Lachaise

During our August 2010 trip to Paris we spent some time at both the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery and the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris. Below are the pictures from our visit.

Pere-Lachaise Cemetery

I have a slight obsession with old cemetaries, especially ones with family crypts. A visit to the famous Pere-Lachaise Cemetery did not disappoint me. It felt other worldly. The scenery was beautiful and the gardens were peaceful. We only allocated an hour or two here but I could have spent much more time. Numerous famous greats from literature are resting here as well as the mysterious and talented Jim Morrison.

Jim Morrison’s final resting place.

This one looks middle-earthy.

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. -Moliere

Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris

The Notre Dame cathedral is amazing as well. This was my second visit and I am still in awe of the stained glass windows here.

I apologize for the blurry photos. The camera was new and I was still learning how to shoot in low light.

It is crowded in here

This fall appears to be the best garden attempt for me yet. Harvest time hasn’t come yet but things are looking very promising in the second square foot garden. Cherry and Juliet tomatoes are growing in abundance. Green peppers are popping up. The eggplant is blooming. Winter squash is producing female flowers. Corn is getting ready to produce. The okinawa squash keeps on producing new growth. The only downside is that it is way crowded in there! When planning the fall garden, I used the square foot garden’s recommendation for spacing. However it is getting too crowded. The typical 4 feet by 4 feet garden is split into 16 one foot grids. Many of the plants growing need at least 1 1/2 of a grid or even two grids. I think that for next season I will break up the garden into 9 grids to allow extra space for big plants. Like the first garden I started in May, I also put a weed cloth down before filling the garden with dirt. The weed cloth was to put down to be a barrier between the pristine new soil and the yucky nematode filled soil below. After a recent organic gardening presentation I found that roots need lots of room to grow down and putting the weed cloth down inhibits plant growth. An experienced gardener assured me that as long as the plant is taken care of and healthy, nematodes will have little affect on my crops. I guess I will experiment with this in the spring but until then I cannot wait to reap the benefits of my hard work!

Garden Preparations

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Loading it up with good soil stuff (peat moss, compost, and vermiculite), adding some support, and measuring out the grid.

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Early starts

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Last Weekend – Busting at the Seams

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Backyard Transformation

A year ago this week, we moved into our current home. The backyard was a typical Florida suburb landscaped yard filled with St Augustine grass and various bushes.

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Over the year some grass has died, some bushes have been moved, and some citrus trees have been planted. In the picture below, you will notice a compost bin in the corner and some work in progress. We put the weed cloth down temporarily to stop the weeds from growing while we were waiting to replace the grass. Additionally we added stepping stones to use in the walkway between the house and the back gate.

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In place of the dead grass, we have started to plant Perenial Peanut and Mimosa strigillosa. Both are spreading ground covers with eye pleasing flowers that can be walked on. They seem to be an excellent St. Augustine grass replacement because they require less water and don’t get the same diseases as the grass does.

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To make room for some other changes, we moved a couple of viburnum to the wall along the house where there is bad water drip during rain storms. Eventually we will want to put in gutters but for now the bushes will make a good rain erosion stopper. The plan is to move all the viburnum against the fence to this wall. We will wait for them to be dormant in the winter for the rest of the transplanting.

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Finally, in the back we have removed a dying palm and the compost bin (It is moved to another area out of direct view). A muscadine grape and an arbor is placed in the corner. The bird bath was moved behind and soon there will be a stone bench in the middle so we can enjoy the afternoon shade.

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