ZONE 9 and FLORIDA GARDENING

[Kikiriki]

SNAIL INVASION IN FLORIDA



We have yet another invasive species moving up the state: an African land snail that is very destructive to gardens and it likes to eat your house, too!

http://news.yahoo.com/florida-battles-slimy-invasion-giant-snails-161432518--sector.html

Anyone in South Florida dealt with this creature?

 

[Kikiriki]

I ordered some seeds since it turns out most of the veggies I most want do not do well in Florida summer.

I am trying to do heritage seeds and organic. I ordered from victory seeds and got got the southern peas: a cream variety that I hope will be similar to white beans that we use to make a salad. They do not do best as a bean to store, but since I don't even know if we will like them, that is fine for this year. I do like black eyed peas which are the same family, so it is more a matter of whether or not DH likes them.

I got a couple of varieties of watermelon, and a few of sweet corn. I quit eating corn because of GMO takeover, so it will be nice to have some I can eat and share with the chickens, too!

I got creeping thyme because I think it is so pretty, and I got lovage because I had seen it as an ingredient in a flavor package for chicken I like from overseas that I cannot get here. Read that the plant is easy, all edible, can grow in part shade, and has a flavor like a yeasty celery....

My cucumbers are coming up, but my bush beans and pole beans are just going nuts! I swear I can just watch them grow right in front of my eyes: blink and you missed a half an inch!

I was watching some gardening videos on youtube: a lady had a thing for her plants called grow towers that is an aeroponic type deal: it looks like a PVC pipe in sections stacked atop each other with opening for plants. The whole thing sits on a big bucket that serves as a fluid resevoir for the nutrient solution. Here plants were happy, but I am not thrilled with having to buy a nutrient solution, nor with not knowing what is in it, where it is manufactured. But, I would not mind trying such a tower with soil that has a pump to slow drip worm tea... I like the idea to use vertical space and I like the idea of being able to better utilize the little bit of sunny area in my yard. I also have just resigned myself to being forever stuck with the miserable mole that has been an on-going problem.... I am keeping nearly all my plants in containers of some sort this year. Even if I did a raised bed, I would have to do something across the bottom to keep the little monster out....

Has anyone tried a garden tower type system with soil? Reminds me most of a strawberry pot, but taller...

 

[Kikiriki]

Fire ants, and aphids, and ranching, oh my! So what, you might wonder, do these three things have to do with one another? Turns out that fire ants actually do their own version of growing meat: yes, they actually "ranch grow" their own aphid food supply! Unfortunately, they perform this amazing feat on OUR desirable garden plants and trees! So while on one hand I am amazed that a fire ant will find an aphid, then carry it to the tender shoots and tips of of our cherished plants where the aphids happily wreak destruction until they grow nice and fat for the fire ants to chow on, on the other hand I realize it is just one more reason to hate those nasty swarming, biting, invasive little devils!

I hate using insecticides, and I really worry about using them where my pets and edibles can be exposed to them, but I am overrun with fire ants and another type of little red ant that has moved in under my patio pavers. I tried vinegar, orange oil, boiling water, grits, soapy water, cinnomon and peppermint to try to erradicate the ants, but all that happened was they moved a few feet over... Sigh ....

I am seriously considering using a regular ant treatment because I worry about the animals being harmed if they disturb a mound. Interestingly, the chickens took care of most of my carpenter ants by eating them and their very sizable eggs, but the chickens are not interested in those small ants. I must say the chickens did make life uncomfortable for the ants in the areas where the chickens did significant excavation (yes, I now categorize chickens as earth moving equipment rather than as birds!) but, the ants are resilient and just set up house again and again....

What have you found to be an effective ant treatment? Is there anything not poisonous that I have not tried?

 

[Kikiriki]

Moringa is leafing out! I am so excited to have this wonderful plant growing! The seeds did take long to germinate, but--wow!-- what a remarkable surge of growth once they popped out of the soil. Even though they are just babies, I had to taste a leaf myself and test how the chickens would like it...

The flavor was really nice: very fresh and strong green flavor, a hint of sweetness, and tiny hint of spiciness (far less than a nasturtium has). It had only the smallest aftertaste of horseradish and it was not unpleasant in any way. I wanted more!
then came the chicken test, because I hope to be able to supplement their feed with the Moringa (using dried powdered leaf in a study I read: at 1/4 of their diet chickens did well with it, at 1/2 of their feed they started to lose weight because it has the same chemical as in legumes that inhibits nutrient absorption).

I gave more than one leaf to the chickens because I wanted to see if all three would eat it, and if they would take more than one bite...they snatched the first bite (greedy little girls that they are!), but then hesitated as they got the flavor of something new (not very daring eaters, my girls). All of them then tried a second bite and they finished all I offered them. That is a pretty good sign that I can use it since those three will not hesitate to snub a food they don't favor.

 

[TLWR]

I will take all the help I can get for gardening down here.
This will be my third year living in coastal AL and I still don't get it.


I need to figure out how to get watermelons and canteloupes to grow here. The watermelons grew last year, but never got very big. I don't think I bought individual serving size melons LOL



I want to figure out how to control the wild blackberries. Don't like them so don't want them growing EVERYWHERE.
How to keep the crabgrass out of all the garden beds.
How to prevent grass from growing through 2' of clay to pop up in the raised bed veggie beds. (I figure if this crap grows through the pavement around here, I don't have much of a chance winning!)

 

[Kikiriki]

Are you sure the grass came up through the raised bed? Could it have been seeds blown in, or rhizomes in the dirt you used? One thing you can do is go to your local state agriculture office or to their website to identify the grass, how spreads, and how to control it. Here in Florida we have wire grass (nutsedge? Nut grass?) it has a root but sends outs super thin underground runners that go all over the place...the wire forms a nut that will form new wires that form nuts, etc. and each one will grow a grass clump. So just one of those nuts in the soil can start a real big and hard to eradicate infestation...

 I grew watermelon once and it grew like mad, but never got ripe... The cows enjoyed it, though! I don't know what would cause them to be tiny, except possibly a lack of nutrients: I know crowded vegies and fruits will not be as big as those that have no competition in the soil or on the branch... But you may have gotten seeds for small melon... The seed could even have been a bad batch from the seed company: cross pollinated hybrid or mislabeled... Also, if you clay you may need to bring in some lighter soil...sand and compost or bags of topsoil... Again, that is something you can look up through your state agriculture office: here in Florida they have a PDF available online that describes the different soil compositions across the entire state. It was very technical, though, so it might be easier to just call your extension! 

This link is for finding your local office by county: http://www.aces.edu/counties/

And how to get your soil tested
http://www.aces.edu/anr/soillab/

Lawn info which might help identify the grass:
http://www.aces.edu/home-garden/lawn-garden/home-lawns.php

Volunteer "Master Gardener" hotline:
https://sites.aces.edu/group/comm/n...=625&Web=47e97ca5-4423-4d76-9434-5d3c250b2274

Be sure to come back and post what you learn! 

 

[Kikiriki]

So I used DE on the ant pile I could see, and put an ant bait. These ants are new...i don't know if they like sweet or fat so I mixed a sweet liquid bait into a mix of crisco and peanut butter and honey and fruit syrup. Now I am wondering if I made it strong enough, though. I put it little plastic lidded cups with holes punched in it, and placed those underneath heavy concrete where the ants are active so the dogs could not get at them. I like that better than spreading poison across my entire yard! I am hoping the two pronged approach will be effective. The DE should cut into the worker population (ha ha! Pardon the pun!) while the bait should make it down to the queens. And if the workers are reduced, the queens will be fed what is readily available: the yummy poison!

We have not had much rain the ant holes are not as obvious as the big mounds...i know I missed some, so hopefully they will all get some of the bait.

I read that these ants are all genetically identical, so they do not fight each other and reduce the population: they cooperate and can have many queens with no competition between them.

I am so tired of all these invasive species problems. I also have brazilian peppers sprouting all over my yard because my neighbors will not take out or at least trim their shrubs. Of course their plants get no sun so they all reach for the sun over MY yard, where they drop thousands of seeds, and the birds spread them into places they are not seen until they are nice and big and hard to remove... I have cut (and cut and recut) the branches that I can reach with a ladder, but I need a pole saw. And the dang things grow 10 feet a year, and sprout multiple branches each time they are cut so it is an unending and losing battle! They are listed as a nuisance plant, but that means they cannot be commercially produced or sold: it gives me no options for doing anything about the plants growing on private property that are causing problems on my property.

 

[digginindirt]

Photos from my front yard......flowers, flowers, flowers....I must have flowers

!!!

​

​

 

[Kikiriki]

Photos from my front yard......flowers, flowers, flowers....I must have flowerse !!!

​

How very lovely! I am largely unsuccessful with flowers because I have too much shade, so I am quite jealous! In the bottom left photo, what is the purpilish spikey plant? Are those purple flowers growing from it?

 

[digginindirt]

Thank you. Behind God and my guys, flowers are a true love.The flowers are actually orchids, the "spikey guy" as my boys call it is a cherry coke dyckia. It is in a ceramic pot as they normally are a low plant.