Garden Update

Echo Canyon

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This is our favorite time of year in Florida.  Spring.  That all-too-brief 3-4 weeks of not-too-ungodly-hot, when we can spend time outside in the yard with the chickens and harvesting food from the hydroponic garden, and best of all, see our daylilies blooming.


We are having our most successful bloom season ever. Our club show and sale is on May 7, and we're hoping to have lots of blooms to pick from to take in for display and judging.  We've already had close to half of our approximately 110 different named varieties bloom, and many of the unregistered seedlings (affectionately called The Bastards) have bloomed prettily as well.

Dark Wonder

Jay at Greenfest

Jay at Booth

The daylily season started out at the Annual University of Tampa Greenfest, where our club sold nearly all of the 450+ plants we had on hand.  Jay is always a hit at the sales tables, turning on the charm to sell the bloomers off the slightly-older-than-us ladies.

Swiss Chard

The hydroponic garden has been doing really well.  We do have some empty containers to fill, and the catnip is going nuclear like it always does, but we've been eating Tatsoi and Swiss Chard most days, and giving it to the chickens as well.

We've harvested two of the cutest little Yellow Pear tomatoes I've ever seen, and have been enjoying strawberries for a few months.  The cucumbers decided to take off in the last week or so, and it's about time to eat the cabbages since the nasty grasshoppers have discovered them.  At least the squirrels will be denied the tomato harvest this year, thanks to The Cage surrounding the area.

Phyllis, Sylvia and Pearl are  doing well, and enjoying the extra outside time that the weather and Jay's surgery recovery has allowed.  Their favorite thing to do is take dust baths underneath my kitchen herb garden.

Long Overdue Hydroponic Garden Update

I took some pictures last night, while Jay was outside covering the plants in preparation for the cold, and when I realized I hadn't posted about the garden since May, I figured I should fix that.  We have been thwarted by squirrels ever since we started our garden.  They ate almost every tomato we've grown (or at least taken big bites out of them) along with a whole tower full of swiss chard as it was just sprouting.  We decided to fight with a steel cage match of sorts.

before

after

Before, the squirrels (and probably fruit rats, but we try not to think about that) had free access to all of our garden goodies.  Now, the entire set of 10 towers has been enclosed in chicken wire, including the top.  This has had a profound (and not unexpected) effect on our productivity.  Duh.






Since the drastic steps, we've been able to re-grow the swiss chard, to the point where both chickens and humans can enjoy it.  We also supplied two counties of family with lettuces on Thanksgiving.  There have been tomato feasts, cucumber festivals (of sorts) and radishes galore.  I had forgotten how much I love radishes.
I even harvested so much thyme that it took me three days with the dehydrator getting all of it preserved.  That much thyme is also a little bit nauseating to smell, by the way.  It ended up not even filling a quart sized mason jar.  Everyone act surprised at Christmas if you get a Gift of Thyme from us :-D

I took a bit of inventory last night.  We have asian eggplants for the chickens, two kinds of lettuce, two kinds of tomatoes, red beets, sweet Florida onions, two kinds of non-Plant City strawberries (this will make sense to my Florida readers), two kinds of swiss chard, snow peas, a boatload of thyme (yes, even after all that harvesting), and two kinds of basil and mint.  I'm probably forgetting something that I'll remember after I hit PUBLISH.  Isn't that always the way?  I've gotten a chuckle or two watching The Ladies follow Jay into the cage to see if he'll give them some swiss chard, or to eat some beet greens that are hanging over the side within beak-reach.

herb tower

lots of thyme

We still have issues with squash getting powdery mildew.  Squash doesn't do so well in high humidity, I guess.  We have huge plants, huge leaves that bloom but don't flower... and then get mildewy.  But most everything else is doing really well.

first cuke

I'm pleased with the strawberries, despite their slow start, although if they make gorgeous berries with no flavor, like the variety we planted the last two seasons, it will probably be the last time we grow them.

berry and onion tower

When the weather threatened to get close to freezing last night, we (and when I say, "we" in this case, it means the incredibly tall and handsome man I'm married to) reused some old sheets to cover the towers to keep the tomatoes from freezing, after harvesting all of them that had started to get red on them.  One of the best things about growing hydroponically (aside from more yield, squirrels notwithstanding) is that we save water.  Not just when we grow, but even when it gets cold.  Last year the traditional strawberry farmers, for example, pumped so much water out of the aquifer in the Plant City area that it caused massive amounts of sink holes and water shortages all around the area.  Hydroponic growers can do like we did, and just cover the towers, and not need to spray water as a protective coating on the berries to keep them safe.  We also can turn the pumps on and off, since they're on timers, and we can make sure the unit doesn't water on days without sun.  Handy, huh?

tall and handsome Jay

cold harvested 'maters and cuke

There were probably more than a dozen tomatoes in here, and one cuke.

swiss chard harvest

It took two green bags to store all this swiss chard.



















Before we went to bed, we (remember what 'we means'?) put some plant lights out under them whole thing, to keep everybody warm.  Between that and the red heat lamp we have in the henhouse, it looked like we had the biggest french fry lights in the world in our back yard.

good night, Garden!

good night, Chickies!

Sad Day in Squash Land......

I hate quitting.  Giving up.  Surrendering. But if gardening doesn't teach you anything else, it'll teach you that sometimes the little guy wins.  Little guys like Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers, Powdery Mildew and Sooty Mold.  And even some sort of unidentified angular trapezoidal squash bug thing. 

So it's with a heavy heart and a sad sigh that I say a fond farewell to my hydroponic squash plants.  Goodbye zucchini.  You gave me 4 really good squashes before you succumbed to powdery mildew.  Goodbye yellow and white patty pan.  You tried really hard to get going, but the fungus got to you before I could.  Goodbye yellow "One Ball" squash.  I was very excited about your first BIG squash, and sad to see the rest of them wither and die. 

You, "Tromboncino."  I will miss you most of all.  You promised three feet of bright green zucchini-like goodness.  You looked a bit like a marital aid.  You, of all the varieties, looked like you were fighting better than the rest.  I have 5 of your baby squash to try in a meal this weekend to remember you by.  I thought it best to harvest what I could before we took you out of the bin.

I'm sorry we didn't realize you all were fighting for your lives before it was too late.  I've learned that if we are going to plant you again, it'll be during a cooler time, and with more air flow around you.  And we'll start preventative spraying with worm tea from the start, because that's more effective than trying to halt fungus and mildew  once it's already in progress. 

On the bright side, your free-ranging volunteer patty-pan cousin is doing really well (so far).  He's HUGE, and while is has a few leaves showing powdery mildew, and we've lost a few baby squashes to sooty mold, he seems to be bravely and happily holding his own in the yard... never been watered, never been fertilized except for two applications of worm tea.  He's often covered in Lubbers and something has laid eggs on his huge leaves.  He might be dead by the time we get back from Arizona, but for now, he's a real trooper.

Onward.  Today, the squash plants will be replaced with yard-long Chinese Red Noodle Beans and Super Sugar Snap Peas.  We'll keep a close eye on the cucumbers that were in the bins next to the squash, because they can be susceptible to the same things that got the squash.  We managed to get a good number of cukes last year, so maybe our luck will continue this year.

Another day, another humbling garden lesson learned.

Happiness is Hydroponics!

I haven't posted about the hydroponic system in a little over a month, so I thought it was time for an update.  I'll start with before (February) and after (last week) pictures.

We've been enjoying eating and sharing with friends (and dogs next door) our snow peas, beets, onions, kale, tatsoi, rape, lettuce and swiss chard.  The broccoli is starting to do its thing and we have one small head of cauliflower forming.  I'm actually surprised that those are doing as well as they are given the heat.  The brussels sprouts aren't producing yet, although the plants are thriving, and the strawberries, while prolific, proved to be disappointing in taste.  Next year, we'll double the amount of snow peas since those have been our best performers so far.  The yellow ball squash, patty-pan and zucchini are all producing flowers and fruit. If I can keep the grasshoppers off of them, we should have a good harvest of all of those.  I need to clear out the beet box and get the cucumber I've been nursing along in the pot I bought it in a month ago put in their place.  We have plans for a bean bed and a pea bed, as well as a place for okra in mind.  I'm looking forward to getting the beans in, especially, since I've got  red noodle beans and dragon's tongue varieties to grow.  The red noodle bean is about 20" long, and the dragon's tongue is a yellow bean with purple streaks on the pod. 

The heirloom tomato "Mr Stripey" was put in before the other 5 heirloom varieties, and has had quite a head start.  We've got some Florida Sweet Onions resting on the shelf under the grill so they can crisp up their skins.

  

It's been a learning experience, that's for sure.  We keep finding things we'd like to have done differently. For example, we would like to turn the bottom bins perpendicular, and spread them out a bit more so there is more airflow, and so the snow peas don't grab hold of everything with their twisty tendrils.   All in all, though, it's been a lot of fun, and has allowed us to feed ourselves, and share with friends.  A good man once told me that food is love.  He was right.  When food is grown with love, it's even better!

Spring is Springing!

I just went out to check on things in the garden and found baby kale, tatsoi and swiss chard sprouts, lots of strawberries trying to ripen, and the first tomato bud forming on Mr. Stripey heirloom plants!  The beets, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and broccoli are all coming along nicely, too.  I ate a serving of raw snow peas for lunch yesterday, and today there are more waiting to be harvested.  I accidentally pulled out a baby swiss chard sprout because it looked just like all the baby maple trees sprouting from the helicopters dropped in from the neighbor's tree  (oops!)

Hydroponic Garden 2010

This is the new location and setup for the hydroponic garden.  Now we have two full sets of towers, and at the end are the two tall tomato-dedicated towers.  You can see the corner of the chicken coop to the right of the hydrogarden, to give you some sense of perspective and placement relative to one another.  We harvested some lettuce and snow peas for dinner tonight.  Yes, I did eat some of the snow peas before they made it into the house.  They are so good!

Hydroponic Garden, Round 1

Tammy asked me to post the link to pictures of our hydroponic system.  These are from the first round, last year.  This year we've more than doubled the size, and moved it to a better (we hope) location in the yard.  I'll work on getting pictures of that in the next few days.  We're still involved in the building of our chicken coop, that the debris pile is right next to the hydro-garden, so I'd like to get some of that cleared away before we take pictures of it.  What you'll see in this link (if this whole link-thing works) will be the process of putting together the system.  It really was a quick.  It took about an hour or so to set the whole thing up.  Longer, of course, to build the frame we used as a trellis.  Jay did all of the work.  Bless his big heart!

Cari and Jay's Hydroponic Garden Version 1.0