Garden Update

First a few before and after shots:

Behind shed BEFORE


Behind shed AFTER




Side yard BEFORE


Side yard AFTER




Raised bed BEFORE


Raised bed AFTER




Southwest corner BEFORE


Southwest corner AFTER




Front yard BEFORE


Front yard AFTER



So we are slowly making progress.

While cleaning up the Bird of Paradise in the southwest corner, I turned up this bloom.


I also uncovered this scat on the deadpile currently in front of my shed.


You know, I'm always fascinated with animal scat, and trying to determine what left it behind. Since I have a privacy fence out back, I have to wonder what's getting in my yard at night, and possibly lives in my yard under the shed.

This swing is a new addition to the yard.


It was given to me by Mom's neighbor. We have it in a shady spot that faces the west, so we can sit out here and watch the sunset.

And Woodrow bought me a wheelbarrow for the yard work.


He got sick of hauling stuff out to the road for me using the little dinky cart that was given to me by my mother. :)

I also discovered these supports that were installed on the fence to support the bougainvilleas that grow against the fenceline.


My passion vine is blooming like crazy. Every day it throws up a new bloom.


And it is supporting a new Gulf Frittilary caterpillar that is growing like gangbusters.




I swear every couple of days I go out to find it substantially bigger than a few days before.

My mango continues to grow:


However the mango tree has dropped a lot of it's smaller fruit. But it does have a lot of new blooms and small fruits coming in. So I'm hoping that the fruit loss is normal.

The tomatoes look good. One is almost ready to harvest, and there is one other small one coming in.


However my eggplant is infested with aphids..


...and some have spread to the pepper plant.


My jasmine is beginning to bloom. Yeah!


And I'm trying to figure out the deal with the cauliflower. This cauliflower was planted a few months ago from a tray of cauliflower bought at Lowe's. Both the cauliflower on the left and right came from the same batch, had the same soil and by all appearances the same conditions. They sit right next to one another.


Yet one is obviously thriving while the other isn't. All I can figure is that the one on the left gets slightly less sun than the one on the right, and it likes it.

You see this guy?


This guy LOVES to chatter and sing! He actually seems to seek out people. He will land near me overhead, and sing like crazy, and sometimes mimic the whistles of me and Woodrow. I think that this might be the same guy who sings up a storm in the middle of the night. Woodrow often hears him between midnight and 2 AM. I even got audio of him recently, but the file is too large for Photobucket, so I have to find a different way to post.

The greatest miracle of all? I finally discovered the Guava tree!


The notes for the house mentioned a guava, but I could never find it. I finally discovered it, hidden away behind the wild bougainvillea next to the shed.


Now I just have to figure out how to move that bougie, so I can free the guava from its grasp!

So that's where we stand at this point. TONS of work to do yet, but it is slowly coming together.

Garden Progress

Aside from working behind the shed, as I mentioned earlier, we've gotten some other work done in the garden.

I finally planted the hibiscus that I got on clearance for $5.


This is monumental, because it is the first thing that I have planted in my garden, and it is one of the only things that I have ever planted in my life.

Woodrow also helped me by pruning the dead debris from the banana trees and the freeze-damaged chenille plant.


We got most of the raised garden bed cleared out.


Just as a reminder, this is what it looked like when I moved in.


I also split the cauliflower between two pots.


It's probably still way too many cauliflower in a pot, but I will probably transplant some into the garden bed once it's ready.

My mangoes are still growing.


To give some perspective, this was the same mango a week before.


My sweet yellow pepper has bloomed.


It appears that my eggplant is about to bloom.


My tomatoes are beginning to turn red.


The lemon still has tons of beautiful blooms waiting to open, and lots of fruit ripening.


The blackberry bush still has fruit growing and ripening.




So the gardening goes on...

Quick Update

Well it is the beginning of February, and I have been in my place for almost four months now. I haven't had any time in the yard lately, and we've been dealing with really cold weather down here, so there is some frost damage to deal with. At least a lot of the weeds got zapped by the cold!

But I did want to do a quick update of how things look. The container veggies are still going well. Tomatoes are developing and eggplant is getting large. Cauliflower still need to be divided and repotted into a few more pots (too many of them in one pot).

I'm not sure, but the Sweet Yellow Pepper looks like it could have a couple of little flower buds coming on.


The pic is really blurry, but there are two little buds in the center there that may be flower buds coming in!

The seedlings are doing well. The Bibb and Romaine Lettuce and Carrots are looking good. It'll be interesting seeing if I can transplant Carrots into a pot. I think I may try to grow the lettuce in a bag of potting soil, and see how that goes-- just lay the bag down, slice it open, and plant the lettuce transplants.


Likewise the Chives, Leeks and Cilantro are going well. I have the same concerns for the Leeks as I do for the Carrots. I don't know how they will handle tranplanting.


One of my Green Beans and my Rosemary have finally sprouted. Still nothing from the other green bean. I am about to start three more green beans.


I'm wondering what this little thing on my poinsettia is? It almost looks like a flower bud coming in. Do poinsettia actually flower? I've only seen the leaves color up like flowers, but have never seen actual flowers on them.


Also I have a single rangy rose bush next to my deck, and periodically it surprises me with a sudden bloom.


Very fragrant blooms it has!

So that is my quick little update. We'll see whether I have time this weekend to do any gardening.

Rare Florida Freeze

Well, while I was out of town on business, Florida got hit with a rare freeze-- the likes of which I haven't seen for many years. It got down to the upper 20s in Orlando where I was on business. When we went to leave about 6:30 AM to go to our show, there was ice on the windshield that had to be scraped off.

I'm not sure how cold it got at my place, but I think this area got around freezing. I worried what I would come home to. I knew about the cold weather ahead of time, so I brought in my potted plants before I left. So my veggies came through okay. I was really lucky. I only have one plant that I've found that could turn out to be totally destroyed by the freeze. That's my Chenille Plant:


A tour around my yard found a couple of other plants that seem damaged or stressed. For some reason, the Areca Palm behind the shed seems to have been hit pretty hard, but all my other Arecas are fine:


Also one of my banana trees seems to have been hit pretty hard:


And the other tree seems stressed, as does the (Draecaena?) next to it:


My ferns seem pretty stressed, but I think they'll survive...


...and likewise the Bird of Paradise looks a little stressed, but I think it will be okay:


On the positive side, my Poinsettia continues to bloom.


I'm excited about this! I've never before gotten a poinsettia to bloom again. Now I just need to trim it down and see how it does next year.

Also the bougainvillea by the shed has finally started to really throw some blooms.


It has been a little slower to bloom than the one out in the sun.

The Cape Jasmine is still hanging onto that bud, and won't let it bloom.


My tomato plant keeps going.


I think it's got about five tomatoes on it now.

My mango blooms keep going, too...


...and my eggplant and yellow pepper.


I have a flower coming in on my White Bird of Paradise:


The cauliflower are getting big, too, and need to be split up among more pots.


So I got pretty lucky with the freeze. A lot of people lost a lot of good plants. However I play a sort of "survival of the fittest" type of game in my yard. I refuse to spend too much time protecting and maintaining everything.