Is Blogging Dead, or, Bees in the Garden this Week

I find it amusing that as I resurrect this blog, I read an article today that the ONE THING you should not do in 2018 is start a blog.  I think I can skip that stricture as I’m not really starting a blog, right?  I’m just continuing the life of this one.

That said, too bad I have already taken a hiatus.  The break was actually for a good cause.  I’ve spent the last two days in the garden, Friday at a community garden and Thursday preparing for my first presentation in my new Bees in the Urban Garden series.

So, Wednesday I went to the Historical Village and had a blast.  Thursday, we were at the library for the presentation.

It was a great turnout, with about 24 people present.  The worst thing was walking into that room, all by myself and realizing I not only had to set up all my equipment, books, and coffee maker.  I also had to set up chairs, podium and move the cart of tables in the middle of the room!  Thankfully, it was accomplished (because I was, miracle of miracles, early).  My kind husband and friends facilitated the break down.

Friday, we had a blast at From the Ground Up, a community garden here in Pensacola.  We spent an hour or so talking with scholars about bees and flower pollination.  I hope they had as much fun as I did!  It was the slightest bit sticky when I realized I was discussing sexual reproduction of flowers with fourth graders.  Oops.

Today and yesterday, I spent working in the garden, trying to get things ready for our beautiful Florida spring.  Here are a few photos of where we are now:

So, we have lots of room for green things to grow.  Also, I have 25 collard green plugs and 25 cabbage plugs to plant.  I absolutely can NOT tell them apart.  Maybe I actually have 50 of one plant?  Wouldn’t that be lovely?  😉

 

Goodness from the Garden

Ahh, it’s that time of the year where the 90 degree temps last well past seven, watering is a necessity, and tomatoes are plentiful.  Yes, tomatoes my dear friends.  They are literally falling off our bushes.  Check my garden page to see the varieties that we planted this year.  So far, we’re only harvesting from the Park’s Whopper, Better Boy and Better Bush.  Let me tell you this right now about the Better Bush.  It is prolific.  It’s a beautiful bush.  It ripened early an is giving us lots of tomatoes.  It’s not any good for eating fresh.  Seasoned and cooked, it’s perfectly fine but this is not a slicing tomato.  In fact, the tomatoes you’re going to see below are Better Bush tomatoes.  They have a very firm outer wall, making them perfect for stuffing!

Another delicious treat from the garden that we had with our dinner is this wonderful mint honey.  Basically, I just crushed mint from the garden and soaked it in our own honey until the honey was infused with the flavorful herb.  I added it to our iced tea and it was lovely!

Related articles

• Tomatoes two ways (mairiking.wordpress.com)
• Smell Your Vegetables: Not So Garden Variety Fragrances (bellasugar.com)

Strawberry Cage

Source: garden-photos-com.photoshelter.com via Becca on Pinterest

I was able to plant 18 strawberry plants today! Unfortunately, these plants above are NOT mine! It’s a great idea for a strawberry cage I found on Pinterest.

Take a look at my great garden helper that I hung out with while planting those strawberries!

Assassin Bug: 1; Honeybee: 0

Wordless Wednesday: Pretty Purple Basket

Counting the Harvest in Pounds

We have finally reached that point! Some of you will be in awe, some of you will be as excited as we are; and, for some of you, you’ll think it’s no big deal as you’ve been doing it for years! 🙂

Well, this is our first year to count the harvest in pounds…and it’s an amazing feeling! We’ve been able to sell some of our produce (local and chemical/pesticide free) for really good prices–and still have enough to share and for just ourselves!

What are the stars in the garden right now? Well, of course, the tomatoes are! That’s what everyone wants to know about, right? Do we have tomatoes?

Do we?

I picked 10 pounds of tomatoes this morning. I am beyond thrilled by that number. Of course, we have put a lot of work into that number, but we feel blessed hugely to see such a wonderful return on our investment so quickly!

What else is starring? Siberian Kale–a noted superfood and delicious to boot!

Herbs: thyme, marjoram, rosemary, basil (two varieties), tea herbs, elderberry, yarrow and echinacea.

Peppers! Jalapenos, sweet banana peppers, sweet bell peppers and cayenne.

Coming soon: keep your eyes open for an abundance of limas, pole beans, green beans and field peas!

Gardening Tips

I pulled out my trusty Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte today to discover what plants are good companions for beans.  Well, turns out that our little picklebush cucumbers are going to be the best bet for companion planting there.  As usual, once I start reading this book, I just can’t stop!   It’s so well written and there’s always something I need to know in there.

As I’m brimming over with information from the book, I thought I would share a few tidbits with you as well.  They are, in no order whatsoever…

• interplant cucumbers and beans as they are mutually beneficial.  summer savory is also a good companion plant for the beans as it increases production and flavor!  keep onions and all onion family members away from beans!
• if you have trouble with nematodes on your cucumbers, spray them with a sugar spray.  Ms. Riotte recommends a mixture of 1/2 cup sugar to cups water, stirred well and allowed to cool.  mix with one gallon of water and spray plants.  for some reason, this application is supposed to dry out the nematodes!  BONUS: even if  nematodes are not present, the sugar water will attract bees and other pollinators and you’ll have a bumper crop of cucumbers.  WIN!
• bee balm helps improve the flavor of tomatoes, as does basil
• garlic is great for apples, roses and strawberries
• keep fennel away from pretty  much everything in your garden.
• elderberry aids fermentation of compost.  (for more composting ideas, be sure to check out Chris McLaughlin’s wonderful book The Idiot’s Guide to Composting)

I really could go on and on and on but there is so much information!

If you’re interested in learning more about companion planting, take a look at a post I made several years ago on the subject:

13 Companion Planting Guides

Ready for a seed swap!

I don’t know about you all but I have been ready to plant for the last two weeks now. Once the thermostat crept back up above 30, I was ready to put something in the ground! The cold weather here did quite a number on the garden but several plants came through with flying colors! The eucalyptus and the rosemary came through unscathed, of course that was really no surprise. They’re large and healthy plants. On surprising survivor was my buddleia, or butterfly bush. It didn’t even lose all of its leaves! On a sorrier note, most of the bromeliads seem to be toast and the angel trumpets will have suffered a hard hit this year. Oh well, nothing we can’t recover from!

In the spirit of growing new things, I have already started four flats of assorted seedlings in the greenhouse. So far, I have these for which I am eagerly anticipating the first sprouts:

• peppers: serrano, jalapeno, hot and sweet mix
• tomatoes: red robin,tiny tim, rhodes heirloom, variety mix
• pocket melons
• seminole squash
• birdhouse gourd
• banana squash
• herbs: sweet annie, lettuce-leaved basil, broad-leaf sage, pyrethrum, borage
• flowers: nasturtiums and lemon drop marigold
• chayote squash

As well, I have several new and exciting varieties on order from Baker Creek Seeds:

• cassabanana
• hardy kiwi
• cactus zinnia
• Louisiana pirogue nicotiana
• Tennessee dancing gourd
• Chiquelite huckleberry
• red malabar spinach

I have never grown any of these before but thought they would do well in our climate…and maybe be something of interest to sell at the Port City Market!

On another note, we are on the lookout for a rabbit to help provide some much needed organic fertilizer for the garden.  We’re hoping he (or she) will love to eat scraps from the veggies.  So, if you know of someone giving away two females or one male (preferably with a cage), we are looking!  Not to sound too cheap, we are willing to pay a rehoming fee for your little rabbit friends and their cage.  🙂

And, why the title of this post?  Seed swap?  Well, because I am always on the lookout for someone to swap seeds with me!  I love heirloom seeds–the more I have, the better.  I love novelty heirlooms, both  vegetable and flower.  I will even trade seeds for garden books–I really want Elizabeth Lawrence books.  So, if you’re interested, please let me know!

As an added note, if we’re swapping seeds through the mail, I like to send my seeds in a small bubble wrap envelope.  Otherwise, I have received crushed seeds in the mail and they’re just not good for anything!!

Emabarassed? Discouraged? Forlorn? Disgusted?

I’m not sure which of these adjectives fits my relationship with my garden the best right now.  What isn’t dying isn’t really doing anything else.  The rye that I planted to act as a cover crop has really gone above and beyond what I asked of it.  It’s really turning out to be a garden thug.  Who knew?  I’ve only seen rye grass in people’s lawns.  I thought it just mysteriously went away.  Naive, I know.

And, did I mention the heat?  Heat indices between 100 and 110 degrees are really doing a number on these little plants.  I’m finding myself to be much more ruthless these days when I come across a listless, sick looking plant.  It gets ripped out of the ground and kicked to the curb–literally.

Hopefully I’ll feel better in the morning.  Just wanted to let you all why I’ve not really been posting any gardening tidbits.  Any suggestions on how to combat the gardening blahs?  I’d love to hear from you!