ZONE 9 and FLORIDA GARDENING

[Kikiriki]

Updates from the central FL garden...

My new parsley is alive, but all the zucchinni died except for one. The eggplant is doing wonderfully! I actually have little fruits and lots of lively purple blossoms! I found corn ears on my corn plants, and this was a surprise. I thought they were destroyed by the caterpillars I'd found. The purslane from the chicken poo + vinegar experiment did start sprouting new leaves, but I think I am done with trying to use chicken manure. With only three chickens, there just is not that much that I get from the coop. The rest is getting turned in by their rototiller-like digging! The rest of the purslane is doing dandy. I used it as a ground cover around the pomegranate tree I just planted and they are both happy. I tried it on a row of mounded earth, too, and it is okay there, but the happiest purslane is in the wicking containers.

My oldest green pepper finally gave up, so I harvested the last peppers. One was a nice ripe red one, so I opened it up right there and shook some seeds right back into the container. The rest are being saved and are drying in the house. I like these long thin peppers, so I hope the seeds in the container sprout!

The pole beans and bush beans are done, so I also saved the last of those beans. I will plant them for the fall garden. One Italian pole bean seems to be hanging on so I left it to see how it will do. Those were my favorites...really tasty!

I found thai basil in the yard that had self sowed from last year. i transplanted it to a container that has a mulberry tree. This is a very young white mulberry and I decided it was just too big a tree for this small yard. I hope that it will be dwarfed in the pot. The weeping mulberry is doing really well in the ground. It is a smaller variety, so I had better options for placing it in the yard.

I planted a paw paw (American variety, not a papaya) in the shade. It is an understory tree and it is very happy.

I am very excited that my southern peas (cowpeas) are doing really well! Nothing bothers them, they are thriving in our heat and humidity, and they are blooming and producing quite a lot. They make funny looking pods...very long and thin...and I used some to chop up raw for a salad. Nice flavor, like a green bean, when young. They had not developed the peas/beans, yet, so they were very tender.

My one little volunteer mustard is seeding like mad. I used some flowers and seed pods in a salad, but I will let the rest develop. A plant that hardy deserves to continue, even if the mustard greens were not a favorite.

I gave my one surviving tomato plant epsom salt and it really put on a burst of growth... It has one tomato to pick today... Did I mention that I have had almost no success with tomatoes and cucumbers? It frustrates me to no end! We spend a fortune on them and I want to grow them...sigh... My cuc plants are doing well since I used soap/water spray to kill an infestation of stink bugs/squash bugs (don't know which they were). However, I have yet to see an actual cucumber! Grrrr...they flower, but no fruits!

I lucked out and found a used greenhouse on CL. Just the fabric tent kind, but I got it for $300 less than a new one of that size would cost! I have been too busy to get it put up, though. That is going to happen today!

And the last update is that the late started watermelons are doing well, even though the seeds had poor sprouting rate. Only 1/3 to 1/2 of the heritage seeds sprouted. The everglades tomatoe seeds still have not sprouted...not for me or my mom. I did not realize they could take up to a month! This coming Tuesday will be three weeks, so I have not given up on them quite yet...

 

[ABeautifulLife]

This thread has been so cool to read & learn from! Kikiriki I'm sorry about your loved farm dog! losing a dog is pain like no other. All your posts have given me lots of insight to use in my garden.

This past spring we started with small rosemary, small brandywine tomato plant, seedlings we grew of a big boy type tomato (very round), squash, tried broccoli and brussle sprouts (I now know to grow them in the winter ), squash and cucumbers. We also have bought small milkweeds for my purple mexican petunia bush that have exploded with growth and a huuuuuuge monarch butterfly garden

(does anyone know if chickens will eat the caterpillars?). Mid spring we bought small basil, peppermint, spearmint, and rosemary and put them in a large rectangular window box, almost full sun and is flourishing. I found that suprising. I've also been really good about trimming my basil so it does not flower to make it grow bigger! We have a raspberry bush that we bought in the winter that has grown a bunch of leaves and is in full sun! I don't know if it will do any good in florida, but we'll see.

Anyway.. the rosemary is giant now! the brandywine tomatoes did great and are still producing, slowly as well as my seedlings. We weeded out about 95% of the brussle sprouts and broccoli seedlings and they have been getting shade from the tomato plants and are starting to stalk up a bit. My squash got hit hard by a hail storm right when it started producing. We had to pull most of the leaves off and all of the fruits died. When it started flowering again it had a worm infestation. The worst I've ever seen.. they were even in the limbs and stalk of the plant! We had to rip them out and will start again next garden. The worms were a dark brown ish color. My cucumbers were really prickly and stayed very small (about 4 inches at most) and were very curly. They tasted good but were not astetically pleasing and you couldn't do much with them.

From this garden I have learned to plant my tomatoes in either large pots or somewhere away from the rest of my plants as they take up alot of room! also if you're going to buy cages for them, buy the biggest you can find

 

[ABeautifulLife]

Also! We did some sort of Asian pea. It had very thin skin and you could see the beans on the inside. They had light pink flowers and grew pretty fast. We harvested them, and when they got hit by the hailstorm they were pretty much done. We tried to nurse them back, but ther was no hope.
We mixed our own soil in a 4 x 6 bed, and used in in our potted plants such as Rasberry, Gardenia (small), Plumeria, and in the ground with other plants. We used some perlite, a bunch of peat moss, organic gardening soil and some top soil (equal for both). I think this really helped our plants grow so well so fast, especially the tomato plants and herbs.

 

[Kikiriki]

Also!  We did some sort of Asian pea.  It had very thin skin and you could see the beans on the inside. They had light pink flowers and grew pretty fast. We harvested them, and when they got hit by the hailstorm they were pretty much done.  We tried to nurse them back, but ther was no hope.
We mixed our own soil in a 4 x 6 bed, and used in in our potted plants such as Rasberry, Gardenia (small), Plumeria, and in the ground with other plants.  We used some perlite, a bunch of peat moss, organic gardening soil and some top soil (equal for both).  I think this really helped our plants grow so well so fast, especially the tomato plants and herbs.

I am so glad you are enjoying the ramblings! I have been hoping other gardeners from the south would jump in since we have issues different from the north.

How annoying to lose plants! Hard to defend from hail without a greenhouse... if you happen to run across the name of those peas I would love to give them a try in the fall. They sound so interesting!

Thank you for your kind words about our dog. I miss him. He was a real cuddler and our other dog hates to be hugged. One may scratch her belly, but she has no other use for contact!

Your soil mix sounds nice...I found peat hard to work with: when it gets dry it gets really dry, really fast, and then resists water. The containers with reservoirs are ideal for me, as they self regulate so well: they do not have to rely upon my memory to have a drink. I did not freshen my soil this spring in them, so I plan to do it this fall. They all need more organic matter worked in, as well as a good dose of worm castings. Perlite always makes me thing the soil is full of little styrofoam balls! I have been considering driving out to the cost to collect some seaweed.

I saw a youtube video on a product called ocean potion, or something like that, and it is just seawater. Seawater is good because it holds minerals in solution, but I do wonder about the salt bilding up over time. The work they based their product upon was by a man who tested how much seawater plants could tolerate, and measured how well they did with the added minerals. 400 cc per gallon of fresh water, I think... I would have to look again...

Yes, chickens will eat caterpillars. I will have to try the brandywine tomatoes... I have just the worst luck, it seems! I had anxiously awaited my 'one' single tomato and one day it was just barely not ripe enough. The very next day something had eaten it! (squirrel?) grrrrr....

I love basil! It gives me zero problems! I actually now have too much since it did so well. But, nut thi am, I bought another variety. This one is called Greek Columnar Basil. It is very pretty, and very very strong flavored. I chewed some leaves just an hour ago and my tongue went numb! It is very spicy tasting. I used the leaves for a quick test to see if it would make a good bug spray, since none of my host of bugs has messed with it at all...

A fireant was crawling on the rim of one of my pots: i used the chewed leaves to rub a circle around the ant. It did not want to crawl over the rub line, though it eventually did. But it reacted kind of like a person who just stepped in dog poo! It was interesting so I did it again. This time, after crossing the line, the ant fell off the pot. I lost in the grass, so I don't know if it was dead or leapt off to escape my harassment

I think I will do a test with grinding the leaves and soaking in water for a spray... I tried peppermint before, and it was ineffective for me.

With your monarch, you can move the cocoon to another plant if you want to keep it safe from chicken snacking! Just research what types they like (the caterpillar, not the chickens!)

 

[ABeautifulLife]

The peas we planted I'm pretty sure were snow peas. I picked them up at my local Ace and they had a different packaging and it said asain something on it. My brandywine tomato grew great and it produced big hearty tomatoes. They were not round and some would call them ugly. I made bruchetta out of them and they were very chunky and not very seedy.. PERFECT for sauce next year. They were so easy to grow. I'm going to look into creating some sort of bug spray out of basil too, because nothing works for mosquitos/ants on me so far and it smells so great! I've done research about my raspberry plant growing in florida and it's not looking so good. UF did some research and there are only a few types of raspberries that will do okay "Heritage" and some other type. I've read that if you can get them to produce and flower the berries will still be bitter. I was wondering if anyone else has tried raspberries. We're thinking it will bloom and produce in the fall, so if it doesn't do so well I think I'm going to replace it with a blackberry bush because there are many types that will flourish and are native to florida.. yum can't wait for blackberry jam

 

[FireflyNights]

I grow heritage raspberries and they are really sweet.Mine berry pretty well all year maybe a month off here and there. The squirrels love them though so I don't get many. The trick is to trim your old canes at the right time. I am on the treasure coast so it get quite warm and not very cold. I was growing Carolinas but they burned themselves out after about 3 years of constant berries.
As far as tomatoes I grow mortgage lifters. They are an heirloom and take a while to mature but well worth the wait.
Anyone growing corn?? Organically?? The black beetles attack whenever I plant.

 

[ABeautifulLife]

FireflyNights, I grew up on the Treasure Coast in Palm City! Small world. I had success with my raspberries this summer and I got a bunch before the chickens found them and started eating them. After september they were done flowering and producing. When is the right time to trim the stalks? I havent cut mine back yet for the winter. They are still growing slowly, but not flowering anymore.

I tried yellow crookneck squash in my september garden along with butternut squash. I have never had luck with yellow squash, we had tobacco worms again, but the plants would only produce small squash. The butternut did okay but it needs alot of room and are very vulnerable to any sort of stress (my chickens!). The chickens walked through the garden one time and barely nicked a few butternuts and they died I tried cucubers again, I tried an organic pickling cuc seed this time and i got excellent results! I think I will be doing a whole 4 X 6 Plot of the cucs because they were so easy and they were huge!

 

[MinxFox]

I am in zone 9a.
I learned the other day when I was looking up information on bananas that they are actually the largest plant in the herb family and that once one fruits, it dies. I have been disappointed in some of my plants. They are not living up to there potential. Just the other day I saw on a website all of the pretty plantings they have around their aviaries, and I recognized several plants that I have yet mine are not as clumped and big. Some of my plants I am happy with. I figure my bananas are just young so they should hopefully get to be the giant size I want them to be. I am really happy with my dwarf shell ginger. I don't think it will flower, but it is beautiful without the flowers. Even in the winter it stays nice and green and it has really formed a nice clump since I have planted it. I was able to successfully take two stalks from it and plant those elsewhere and they have survived. The clumping bamboo is the easiest to grow plant that I have. I keep it in my aviary and it creates great shade.

Here is my largest clump of bamboo.


Here are some of the plants outside of the peafowl aviary. The bananas are all ugly and brown right now so this photo is from before the colder weather killed the leaves. The plant in front of the bananas is castor plant. The pretty bush is the dwarf shell ginger and there is a tree in front of that which is a sweet tea olive. I have two sweet tea olives and I love them sooo much! They are one of the most fragrant plants I have encountered as far as being able to smell it when you are feet away and you can smell it from even longer distances if a wind comes and blows the smell your way. They get these little white or yellow flowers that have that wonderful sweet smell.


I also have a dwarf princess flower or some type of princess flower. I kept it in a pot for a while and was worried if it would withstand the winter but I finally decided to plant it. I fell in love with this plant when I saw the tree version of it at Islands of Adventure in the Jurassic Park section. This plant flowers profusely. It always has flowers! Now I really want the large version.

Some other plants that I have are cast irons, fatsia, white bird of paradise (still seeing if it will make it through this winter), Pineapple guava (I need a second one for pollination), etc.

I want to have a nice tropical garden and I can't wait for it to fill in. I have some elephant ears but they are not getting really huge yet.

 

[flgardengirl]

Minxfox, your garden is looking great. Is your princess flower a Tibouchina? http://www.floridata.com/ref/t/tibo_urv.cfm
If so, it may die back to the ground if you get a good hard freeze. I have to protect mine here is the zone 9a . I have the grandiflora variety that has the biggger round leaves. Some have a narrower pointy leaf but all are very frost sensitive. I have mine potted and move them into the gh if it freezes. They are easy to root cuttings from in the spring.

 

[MinxFox]

Yes mine is a Tibuchina. It is under a large oak tree and I surrounded it with lots of leaves so I hope it doesn't die. So far it hasn't shown any browning and it keeps blooming. The Tibuchina I have is very small. I have seen a large one that is a bush at the Jacksonville Zoo and when we asked one of the zoo horticulturists about what they do for their tropical plants during the winter, he said that because most of the plants are grown next to the concrete pathways, the heat from the concrete keeps them warm. They only have to dig up the plumerias. I wonder if I could put some big rocks around the plant and keep it warm? We have a greenhouse but it is very old and brittle. The door isn't even attached to it.