More Garden Pictures

A few more pictures of the garden, continued from yesterday's post.

Sq Ft Bed with Brocolli, Oregano and Peppers

Jalapeno

More Tomatoes - Mortgage Lifter

Eggplant

Gardening in December

It's been a while since I've posted about the happenings in my garden.  All the varieties of the tomatoes I have planted are doing well, many blossoms and fruits.  My starfruit tree has several large fruits close to being completely ripe.  Golden Apple aka June Plum, Hog Plum also almost ready to pick.  Brocolli has started produce heads.  Jalapeno and Banana peppers are also fruiting, as well as an Eggplant.  I've recently seeded carrots, nasturniums, spinach and lettuce, some have sprouted, others I will have to try to plant again this weekend.  Here's some pics of current state of affairs.




Starfruit

 




Tomato



Banana Pepper




 

Roses Are Blooming

Late October in South Florida and my roses are blooming. Not much to say, other than they smell as lovely as they look.

I fertilize when I remember, I deadhead spent blooms only when I remember, basically I ignore this poor plant but it's doing quite well without my help.

Sometimes you just have to let Nature do it's thing.

Apples, Potatoes and Carrots

It's been very hot and humid in South Florida this past week, temperatures are in the 90's, triple digit heat index and daily thunderstorms. In my garden the tropical plants seem unphased but others well they tend to look wilted, like I do by the end of the day. The potato plants I had started from cupboard potatoes were dried up and the carrots were a week past their harvest date, so I had to pull them up.


While checking my other container plants, I noticed that one of my columnar apple trees is bearing fruit. When I purchased these trees early 2009, I had no idea if I would actually get them to fruit. I know apple trees in general require a certain number of chill days and wasn't sure if South Florida would get cold enough in our "winter" to allow fruiting, but it looks like it was a cold winter in deed. I now hope my apples survive the heat and humidity we are currently experiencing.

Will It Be Worth the Wait?

Two Summers ago, I ate a very sweet pineapple bought from the grocery store. Being that it was one of the sweetest I've ever eaten, i decided to try to grow it. Starting it in a recycled glass spaghetti sauce jar, it set out roots quickly and I planted it into a container. For two years, I've watered and watch my pineapple plant grow in size. Early this year I decided to transplant it from it's smaller container to a larger one and within weeks I had new growth and baby pineapple started to grow. Here is my little pineapple, I hope it will as sweet as it's parent.

Why don't you try to grow one this summer?
How to Grow Pineapple

A Handful of Cherries

This is not your typical cherries found in the groceries stores during the summer, these are
Barbados Cherries. However don't be fooled by the name, these cherries not only grow in Barbados, but widely throughout the Caribbean and South America. Growing up these were the only cherries I knew of and I was overjoyed to finally be able to eat them again from my own little cherry tree. Barbados Cherries perish quickly once picked so you will not find often find these for sale. I've own my cherry tree for three years now, it's scraggly and wierd looking, but it hasn't failed to provide me cherries. I attribute the appearance to the fact that I am growing it in a container and inhibiting some of it's development, but I just don't have the yard to really put down roots. Barbados Cherries are an excellent source of Vitamin C, some varieties are extremely tart and while others are sweet, thankfully the fruits on my tree are the sweet type.

Guilty of Splurging this Week

I admit it, I'm totally guilty of spending money on something that wasn't necessarily needed, but when I saw it.. I don't know I fell in love. I couldn't recall seeing anything like it before, the colors, the shape..the whole look. It was simply spectacular and I knew I had to have it. So allow me to introduce you to the latest addition to my garden....A Shrimp Plant Mixed Container!!

This container is spectacular, the shrimp plant has been trained into a tree shape and the container is filled with various filler plants whose names I don't know. I'd love to know the identity of any of these since the container didn't container any care instructions of identification. There's a coleus in there for sure..

April Showers..no more like April Flowers

I love working in my garden and don't mind the hard work when the rewards are as pretty as these. Check out the flowers blooming in my garden this month.

Hybrid Tea Roses

Gardenia

Hibiscus

Gypsum and Purple Lantana

Bush Daisy and Purple Lantana

The tea roses and hibiscus have been living in containers for the past 2 years at least. The gardenia I planted into the landscape about 8 years now and the lantana, gypsum and bush daisy are all perennials I planted last year.

My Garden After a Chilly Winter

Early January was extremely cold in South Florida and quite a few of my plants were bothered by the frosty temperatures. Even though I attempted to cover quite a few of them, there was definite frost damage to some of the more tropical plants. However some of my plants seemed to have enjoyed the chill and are doing quite well now. All of my containerized citrus trees, Key lime, Persian lime and Meyer lemon are in full bloom and have already set some fruit. My mango tree is also in full bloom, hope to get fruit this year.
Ice Cream Mango
Persian Lime
Meyer Lemon
My square foot garden is also doing well, I've been harvesting radishes and lettuce is ready. I alternated planting so that the lettuce and spinach will be ready at different times and I am not overwhelmed with too much of any one thing.
Square Foot Garden
In my square foot garden I currently have growing: radishes, chives, two types of spinach and lettuce, cilantro, parsley, scallions, tomato, carrots, yellow onions and nasturium. All were started from seeds except the cilantro which was store bought and the scallions which were started from grocery store cuttings.