Last Week of April

This is my only rose bush.  I planted it about 3 1/2 years ago and it hasn't grown 1 inch since then!  But it's still alive; that's a plus.  It's a Peace Rose, a tea rose.  The coloring is so beautiful - a pale pink on the outer edges of the petals, to peach, to yellow in the center.

The temperatures are now in the 80's during the day and we had at least 12 hours of heavy rain 2 days ago, so everything is exploding into bloom or fruit!  This is also, unfortunately, the time when insects (flying or crawling) really invade the garden.  Most of my plants are in containers, so they are being visited by flying insects that are trying to eat all the young vegetable buds before they grow into full-sized veggies.  They are attacking my strawberries before I pick the ripe ones; they are flying around my tomatoes like bees making honey. 

I'm wondering if these flying insects might be the "love bugs" we get down here at this time of year.  I suspect that they are not because I don't remember love bugs attacking my vegetables last year at this time.  The bugs I have look similar to small flies and there are hundreds of them around my plants.  I don't want to use any chemicals on my garden, so if anyone knows what they may be, let me know so I can find a safe option to get rid of them.

(Above) The azalea bonsai I received in early March has begun producing pink flowers on it today.  I was worried about overwatering it, but it must be doing well. 

(Above) This is the first time I've tried growing bush beans and I'm pleased that they look so healthy and so far no insects have tried to eat them (cross your fingers).  I've probably jinxed myself by saying that.  Anyway, they've got flowers on them now so I'm really eager to eat the first fully developed green bean this year. 

I've picked and eaten zucchini, strawberries, potatoes and tomatoes from my little container garden this year and I can't even begin to find the words that describe how much flavor there is in a home-grown fruit or vegetable.  They taste the way they were meant to taste originally, I guess.  I eat them the same day I pick them, so there isn't time for them to lose an iota of their flavor.  Full taste.  Wonderful!  That's why I find it so rewarding to grow a little garden, I suppose.

Speaking of potatoes, I have to say that planting potato eyes that have sprouted really gives back about 10 times the amount you planted.  One eye has produced anywhere from 6 to 12 potatoes; some small, some medium.  If I could be patient and wait a little while longer, they would all be bigger, but I had to make some potato salad for dinner yesterday.  Below is yesterday's little haul.

I have a second butternut squash beginning to form.  I think you can see both of them in the photo below.  The larger one is at the top of the picture, just left of center, and the new one is at the bottom with the blossom still attached.

And below is a not very good picture of my Hungarian hot pepper plant which is left over from last season.  It produced very well last fall and lived through the cold of winter.  Now it's come back and it looks like I'll get a few more hot peppers this year, as well.  They are really hard to see because they are the same color as the leaves, but there are 2 teeny peppers in the photo.

My Garden's Progress in April

My daylilies are beginning to bloom now and they are so bright, almost glowing!  This is a Stella D'Oro lily I planted 2 years ago.  It's smaller than I expected so I planted additional lily roots in mid-March to fill in around my palm tree.  Below is a photo of how much they have grown since then.  I'm expecting them to bloom in a couple of weeks.

By the look of the size of these lilies (above), I think they'll be much taller and fuller than the Stella D'Oros.  The two pictured here aren't around my palm tree.  I planted these, called Buttered Popcorn, in the back yard.

(Above) My aloe plant is blooming for the first time since I moved here!  I really wasn't expecting it and when I walked around the side of the house, there it was, about 3 feet tall!  I like plants that do all the work by themselves.  It doesn't even need me to water or weed or trim it.

Above is the pineapple top I planted on the last day of March.  It definitely has new bright green growth in the center and when I tug on it gently, it feels firmly rooted.  Looks like I may have success with this - I'm thrilled about it.  Now I'm beginning to wonder how long it will be before I can pick a pineapple!  My neighbor's pineapple plants do produce fruit for her.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I think zucchini blossoms (above) are so beautiful as flowers, even if they didn't produce one of my favorite vegetables.  I picked the long-anticipated first zucchini this morning.  I'll have to think of how I might want to cook them for supper tonight - there are so many ways to prepare zucchini; even raw or cooked.  This is the first time I've been able to get the plant to grow long enough to give me actual fruit.  At least half of the little zucchini are dying before they mature, but I've got 3 good ones growing that look as though they will make it.  And still more blossoms, so I have high hopes!  Below is a photo showing the size of the whole plant now, April 21.

And one last snapshot for today is of the tiny Butternut squash forming.  It's just beginning, so I don't know whether it will mature or not.  I had 2 tiny acorn squashes start to grow and they both just dropped off the plant.  I hope this squash does better and survives.  I'm thinking maybe the really cool nights we had when the acorn squash were forming may have killed them.  Below, baby butternut squash.

Kumquats or Loquats?

My wonderful neighbor came over this afternoon with this beautiful "bouquet" of kumquats from her tree.  Aren't they just gorgeous?  And they're just as delicous as they look.  I'm so lucky to have these happy, generous people all around me.  They are so willing to share the "bounty."  But I'm thinking these are loquats, not kumquats.  I think kumquats are almost like little oval shaped oranges and are a little tart, with skin that's similar to an orange.  These are smooth-skinned and softer and hardly tart at all.

I just planted 3 seeds in a container of potting soil from one of these fruits I ate.  I think I'll just throw the seeds out in a garden strip I have in the back yard.  If they grow, wonderful; if not, then at least I tried.  I'll put a few more in a pot and see what happens.  My neighbor's tree is about 8 or 9 feet tall and is really producing a lot this year. 

When she came over today, she told me there are 3 new baby cranes in the neighborhood just newly hatched and following their mother around (she's assuming it's the mother).  I'll take my camera out and see if I can locate them so I can post a picture of them here.

(I found the sandhill crane with her young one almost a month later than this post, so I've added it here.  They were strolling on the golf course behind my house, looking for something to eat.)  The baby is a little over 2 feet tall now.  How fast they grow!

The last thing I did out in the garden this morning was plant a sweet potato (below) that had started to sprout because I didn't pay any attention to it after buying it a couple of weeks ago!  Since potatoes do so well here, I cut it up and put it in a container.  I'm wondering whether it will produce sweet potatoes or just pretty vines.  Either will be fine with me but I love sweet potatoes and wouldn't it be wonderful to go to the backyard and dig up some for dinner?

My First Ripening Tomato!

Yay!  My first reddish tomato of 2010!  This is mid-April now and my little container garden is looking good.  Healthy.  Except for a few leaves that were hit by a low temperature after I planted them, which was the end of January and the beginning of February.  Now the weather here on the Treasure Coast is like summer would be in PA, if we had much of a summer in PA.  The temps are reaching low 80's in the daytime and 60's at night. 

At this point, I'd guess I have at least 80 little green tomatoes on the 2 bushes.  More than I ever had in Pennsylvania.  The trick here, though, is to baby the plants until the fruits ripen and can be harvested.  In PA, I just let the garden do it's thing.  Here, I have to check every day to make sure there aren't any bugs or diseases and to see if they need water.  These container plants definitely need watering every day.  It rained a little this morning but that wasn't enough to wet the garden soil thoroughly.

The zucchini (above) is doing well so far.  Several zucchinis have already bit the dust but I have at least 5 more that look like they will be maturing, as well as 7 more blossoms.  I'm itching to try stuffing and cooking the zucchini blossoms; I'll post it if I'm at all successful and remember to take a picture.

My poor strawberries (below) are being eaten by birds (or other bothersome critters).  I ate a few off the vine, so to speak, but now that the birds have found them, I may not get any more!  I think I should look around to see if I can find a net that goes over them for protection.  There must be something like that out there.  Sad looking, isn't it?

Update on My Vegetables

The two tomato plants I bought as potted starters are growing like wildfire, and that's what you can expect from plants in a self-watering container.  The smaller plant is a patio tomato which is a bush tomato plant and the taller one is a Big Boy that is about 4 feet tall now.  There are at least 6 to 8 green tomatoes on them, and dozens of blossoms.  I'm hoping they stay healthy and produce a great tomato crop for me this year.  I'm so happy with their growth so far.





In the picture on the left, you'll see how fantastic the strawberries (left) are doing!  Lots of flowers and green berries.  I've picked two nice red berries so far. 

In the photo on the right are the zucchini plants in the smaller self-watering container.  These plants are about to take over.  There are several blossoms which I'm keeping my fingers crossed will turn into nice green zucchini.  Last year my zucchini plants died after blooming.  I'm not sure why; I didn't see any pests, so maybe underwatering.  That's why they are in this self watering container this year.

I planted bush beans (below) three times and they finally sprouted.  They may be getting a later start than they need to produce beans this season.  Last year I tried pole beans which did fairly well, but were a little too straggly.  I hoped these bush beans would yield a good amount, but I'm not sure they have enough time before the rainy season to produce.  I'm hoping, anyway.

And last, but not least, I've got 2 little green peppers growing well.  This plant, below, is left over from last Fall, when it gave me about 4 nice, medium-sized peppers.  I didn't dream it would bud and produce again this season, but I got a bonus.  Two growing seasons for the price of one!

So, as of April 2, everything is healthy and growing well.  I can only hope it continues along this smoothly and I get a nice basket of veggies to harvest.

Just a little note:  I'm also growing a few herbs - parsley, thyme, rosemary, chives and spearmint.  They all do very well here in Florida and haven't had any insect problems.  The only complaint I have is that the man who weed whacks around our houses, accidentally (I hope) cut off my spearmint down to the ground, along with a Plumbago I was nursing back to health after this tough winter.  They must have looked like weeds to him!

My Lily Roots at Last

I've finally received the long-awaited lily roots from QVC that I ordered from Cottage Farms on February 8.  Naturally QVC waits until the recommended planting date before sending them to you.  I've never planted bare roots before and certainly never planted them in Florida soil/sand, so wish me luck!  I bought my favorite Miracle Gro Garden Soil to put around the roots to give them a good healthy start.  The soil contains fertilizer so all I have to do is keep them watered.  I've had pretty good luck with plants from Cottage Farms so far but this past winter's colder weather has almost killed several plants.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they spring back now that the days are warmer.  The nights are still cooler than normal, though.  The ugly picture below is how the roots look when you get them.

I dug a hole twice as big and twice as deep as the roots and filled it with my garden soil.  I mounded the soil up in the center, positioned the roots so they would surround the mound, then put good garden soil around the roots up to the level of the ground.  A good watering and a little bark mulch finished it off.

Looks dead, doesn't it?  It's really just dormant.  It will grow beautifully - I have faith in Cottage Farms roots and plants.  They've always done well for me.

And here it is all finished with mulch.  The weather on the Treasure Coast is perfect now and I've been doing a lot of cleaning up around my established plants, as well as weeding around the vegetables I planted a little earlier.  Everything is going like crazy.  We're having 70-80 degree days and plenty of sunshine.  The tomato plants are really growing well with at least 6 or 7 green tomatoes.  I've had a ripe strawberry already and lots more to come.  This is the exciting part of gardening:  seeing what is new each day on the plants and watching them ripen.  Usually I just pick a tomato off the vine or a pepper or strawberry and eat it right away. 

Below is a photo showing how much the lilies have grown in only 2 weeks!  I planted them in a circle around the palm tree in my front yard.

It's hard to imagine that this is the bare root I planted on March 19, isn't it?  Hopefully, they will be blooming in a month or two.