Christmas decorations are up

Today I spent most of the day decorating the outside of the house.   Every year I say, this is the last time I'm doing this, but every year all  my neighbors decorate their houses, so the guilt is on.

I will be away from the garden for the next ten days, traveling on business, I hope the wife remembers to water the plants.  
This post comes from my IPad, is a little different specially uploading pictures.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

From the DragonFly Garden

Sick Palms





MY Queen and Christmas palms in the front of the house are suffering from something that looks like black leaf diseases.  The new leafs are not healthy and both palms are dying, so I will be calling someone to cut them both.  These palms were planted by the builder back in 1990 when the house was built and were here when we moved in; I hate to see them go.  

All my bromeliads around the palms are cover with this black fungus, that is making growing anything in the front garden very difficult. 

 

Pictures from around the garden:

The birds were happy,

 

 

and the caterpillars were hungry. 

 

 

Flowers blooming this week   

 

The cucumber plants are growing fast and already have flowers  

The winter vegetable garden is ready

For the last couple of weeks I been working on my winter vegetable garden.  This year I’m sawing seeds and I purchased seedlings from my favorite organic herb farm in Homestead.

 

In this bed I planted white onions, (from home depot) purple kohlrabi and mix greens. 

 

In the middle bed I planted red bell peppers, Swiss chard and I’m sowing spinach (nothing yet).  By the wall I planted cucumbers.

These are broccoli seedlings; the plant in the center is purple basil.  The container in front has mix greens.

 

This year I’m planting all my tomatoes in containers and the cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets. Let see if I have better luck. 

The weather has changed the cooler nights are perfect for growing vegetables; the only negative is that the dry season is here.  It stopped raining two weeks ago and my rain barrels are almost empty.



Cleaning after Sandy

Hurricane Sandy passed by yesterday about 100 miles east of the Florida coast, but left us a mess.  We have been dealing with constant rain and high winds since Thursday; this morning was the first sunny day and a good time to survey the damage.

My Starburst and Brunfelsia trees suffered the most and I’m sure that will hamper the blooms this winter.  Late season storms like this tend to do a number on winter blooming trees.

I was thinking this week that, this year I was a little late planting my vegetable garden.  After all the rain we got this week I’m glad of my procrastination. 

To everyone in the northeast, be safe and take hurricane Sandy serious.       

Fall festival time

In South Florida we know is fall festival time when our summer 90’s temperatures turn into lovely 80’s fall weather.  Today I attended one of my favorite festivals, the Edible Garden Festival at Fairchild Tropical Garden.   This festival is a combination of a Halloween celebration and preparation for the upcoming vegetable gardening season.

Lecture on how to grow vegetable during our winter. 

 

The scarecrow contest is fun for kids and adults.  All materials must be recyclable items.  These were my favorite entries.

   

The vegetable season is here

Today I started preparing the vegetable beds by adding more soil.

 

 The seeds I planted last week are germinating.  I have tomatoes, broccoli and cucumbers

What’s blooming in the garden this week  

Milkweed 

 

 Thryallis

 

Miniture Ixora

 

 My Cassia tree is blooming

 

 Purple Allamanda

No plants were wasted

Last week I pulled 10 yellow crotons (don’t know the common name) from my daughter’s front garden, and brought them to my place.  I don’t like to throw away perfectly good plants, even if they are not to my favorite, so I planted four around the back garden and the other six I put them in containers to give away.

 

I must admit the yellow crotons in the middle of all the green gives the garden a nice look, especially in the early morning when the sun is coming up. 

This week I received my order of vegetable seeds from Annie’s Heirloom Seeds, they were recommended by a friend.  This year I’m trying something a little different, I will try to grow must of my vegetables from seeds. 

 

In this part of the country we don’t have green houses to germinate our seeds, so the best place is a shady area to keep them away from the hot midday sun. I’m trying to grow tomatoes, broccoli and cucumbers, the rest I will plant later direct into the vegetable garden. 

 

Other pictures from the garden this morning 

Gardening at my daughter's - Part 2

Today I helped my daughter finish her tiny garden.  This time I was there as a helper and adviser, she wanted to do her small garden in the front of her townhouse.  The home had Yellow Croton in the front of the house that she hated.

 

Part 1 was my gift to her while she went on her honeymoon.

 We took out all the Crotons and replaced them with purple hearts, Mexican petunias and some grasses.

 

She purchased a big container and I planted bromeliads from my garden     

 

Regular Fall Maintenance

This weekend I concentrated on my back garden, the summer rains created a jungle, and some of the plants were out of control specially the Rangoon Creeper.  The weekend was not ideal for gardening, we had torrential rains both days but I was able to finish.

Before

After – All it takes to make it look like new is some mulch, a few annuals (Asters and Pentas) and it’ll be good for a couple of months.