Fall in My Central Florida Garden

Well, I've gone and done it again... not posting regularly as I promised myself that I would - since February! Yikes.

This time, it has to change. Why, you ask? Well, I've left my full-time day job, although I'm still teaching classes at the college in the evenings. But without the 8 - 5 (or 6 or 7-ish) grind, I am hoping to spend time on my real love of tending the "yarden."

Looking around the ol' Ponderosa, I see so many deferred projects that I can't imagine having time to do what I love which includes not only creating and growing, but then taking pics to share and writing about the experience, whether good or bad.

The kitchen court yard, once green and flowery, and herby, with occasional containerized tomatoes (nematodes, you know), is now mostly barren - it is almost November, after all.

But this year it was rather cute during the summer with zinnias, foxgloves (which never did really do well this year), pentas, annual dahlias, angelonia and torenia. Had some nice color for a while, but lots o' rain, then DRY, then RAIN, then dry, didn't do any of the plants any favors.

The cute whiskey barrel planters from, oh, I think 2006, have finally given up the ghost and rotted through, so I need to plan for replacements/reconfiguring those areas for next spring.

For now, I'm going to concentrate on the cool season and the opportunity for salad greens like arugula, mesclun, spinach, kale and various lettuces for the cooler season. Also got a tomato plant (yeah, I know, not from seed) to hopefully augment the salad bowl.

I still hold out hope that THIS year (like all the past) will be THE year that I finally am able to grow and play and LOVE My Central Florida Garden!

Free Veggies in My Central Florida Garden

FREE Veggies in My Central Florida Garden

I like to buzz around on the ‘net looking for creative ways to grow things and save $$$ while I’m at it.

I came across some ideas that seem to be SO-O-O easy, I can’t believe I hadn’t read about them or thought of them myself before this!

Back in 2011 I planted just some generic white Idaho potatoes in the back yard.  You see, they had already sprouted in the pantry and had started to shrivel as I had been derelict (as I am occasionally know to be) in my duty to use before I lose (food, that is).

Well, they DID grow, and I was able to dig up some medium sized spuds for dinner.  Now even though I know I paid for the potatoes initially, it seemed that I was able to grow FREE potatoes, my logic being that if I hadn’t stuck them in some soil, they would have just been thrown away.

Well, back to my buzzing around the ‘net, I read about sticking the root end of green onions, garlic, sweet potatoes, and even celery into growing medium to get in effect a re-incarnation of the original plant.  Now, I know people have been doing this for years, it’s just that I hadn’t so when something like this works for me, I get really stoked! 

My former neighbor used to get pineapples to regrow from the tops, and even though I have tried a few dozen pineapple tops, I’ve just not hit the right culture with them to get those scrumptious tropical babies to regrow for me.  Never fear, I’ll keep trying to get those babies to grow in My Central Florida Garden… along with my green onions, garlic, potatoes, and celery.  

A Series of Small Things Makes a Garden

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
Vincent Van Gogh -

Ah, Vincent, truer words were never spoken. Just as the truly great gardens are not built in one day on a whim, my Central Florida garden has been a labor of love over the last 20+years with some years bearing more of a lasting imprint than others.

The last post was about my garden being a passion to which I’ve set my mind.

Now I have a passion to plant a salad bar and that’s totally do-able in My Central Florida garden at this time of year.

We’ve had quite a warm January with some days in the mid- and upper-80’s. Even in Central Florida those are temps you just don’t expect in the middle of winter.

But there are some growing things that will relish the cool temps, namely Salad Bar Stuff.

Those “stuffs” include all types of greens such as lettuce, spinach, onions, peas, sweet peas, you get the idea. Most of these seeds you can plant about anytime during the winter here in Florida since the ground doesn’t freeze, although right about now I’d love to see a heavy frost or even a short-duration hard-freeze to help kill off some of the weeds and unwanted bugs.

Fortunately, as of 1/27, our weather has turned cooler, so these fresh salad favorites should do well for my Central Florida Garden.

Gardening is an insatiable passion, in my Central Florida Garden.

Gardening is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart. -Karel Capek

This time of year, as the Christmas lights go dark and the color-saturation of the holidays dims, I find turning to the garden plan is a most welcome labor of love.

Poring over seed catalogs, surfing the internet for online nurseries, taking colored pencils to the copy of the homestead survey anew absolutely makes my toes curl….

Even as the year winds down and we gardeners take a welcome rest from the riot of gardening to-do’s, the prospect of a new palette, a new layout, and new plants calls to us during the winter season’s dormancy.

As for me and my garden planning process, I have already started a tray of delphiniums seed. Here in my Central Florida garden, we treat these beauties as annuals. The next tray to start is foxgloves. They sometimes reseed (they’re biennials) and regrow, but they’re not reliable as a true biennial here in Central Florida; it’s just too warm for these traditional English Garden babies to take hold and persevere through the summer monsoons and sub-tropical winters.

One of the new entries to this year’s plan is a type of hydrangea that is SUPPOSED to grow here in Central Florida. I ordered 10 baby plants online; they arrived looking rather disheveled, but mostly alive, except for one of the teeny plants.  I potted up the baby plants which were just shipped in liner capsules and then shrink-wrapped with the top and bottom of the “envelope” left open for ventilation. After potting, I set them outside in an area protected from the still-too-hot sun and kept an eye on them so they wouldn’t dry out.

The cuttings started making progress in their nursery location until WHAM!

Something, somebody, some critter ate off ALL the new green growth.

I’ve moved the now-denuded baby hydrangeas, but the damage may be too extensive to save many. The nasty marauder even stripped the baby bark from the plants, so I can only hope that they will survive. But I am one of those gardeners who doesn’t give up, so I’ll keep on keeping on with their care and feeding until the plant-god convinces me they’ve given up the ghost.

The variety’s botanical name is Hydrangea macrophylla “Harlequin” which is also in some areas referred to by the common name of Raspberry Parfait. It may be that the varmint that annihilated them heard that common name and decided that it was too good-sounding to pass up! We will see what happens and also see if I can clobber that critter’s appetite for the baby plants in My Central Florida Garden!

And speaking of baby plants, I just received my first seed/plant catalog in the new year. It sets me off on a tangent from what my plan had been – to keep a fairly simple color palette of red, white, and yellow which shows so nicely against the dark brick buildings and dark-stained 6 foot fencing. 

But, it’s only a tangent. I do love the look of a cohesive, orderly, and even logical landscape as the great garden and landscape designers have done in the past. 

So, at least for now, I will continue with my present color palette, even though I will try some new varieties in My Central Florida Garden.