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.

Progress Report

Tonight my project, aside from weeding the area in front of the raised bed, was potting some of the plants that I've gotten in the last couple of days.

I got a couple of strawberry plants today. They are two different kinds, so that I can see which one seems to work better. One already has a bunch of berries on it.


I've never had luck with strawberries before, so we'll see how it goes.

I potted the Meyer Lemon (seen with the strawberries)...


...and the Guava (seen with my Bird of Paradise, that doesn't have a place in my yard yet).



I potted Lemon Thyme with my Eggplant.


The pepper appears about ready to bloom.


I put Basil with my tomato.


My little mangoes continue to grow. This is the largest one that I found.


I noticed that my orange tree is looking pretty peaked.


I wonder whether it is the cold weather (I think I left it out during the last cold snap), or if it just needs a good fertilization?

I didn't get to the other stuff (like the Passion Flower and Raspberry, nor get the cauliflower split up into two pots). Next time.

My New Babies

Well I was finally able to attend the annual Caloosa Rare Fruit Tree sale that I've been looking forward to for months. There were lots of trees there to choose from, with the largest selection being from ECHO. I bought a Passion Flower from them. Below are my new plant additions:

Passion Flower:


Meyer Lemon, which is already laden with small fruits and a lovely bloom:






Black Raspberry (I forget the type, but it is a tropical version that doesn't need cold weather like others). It came with some raspberries already on it, and some blooms:






Guava:


Aloe:


Datil Pepper:


Lemon Thyme, Clover and Rosemary:



Grand Total: $104


This had to be "meant to be". I pulled out my cash, was short, asked Woodrow if he had any cash, and he had $11. I added that to my cash, and was still a few bucks short. Then I found a few more dollars, counted it up, and it was $104 even. It was destiny!

So now I have to figure out what to plant where, and what to leave in pots.

Some other things that happened today:

I've been watching these "weeds" that have been growing under my ficus for a couple of weeks now, wondering exactly what they were. I was amazed at how quickly they grew. Well today I think that I figured out what they are. Sunflower volunteers!




The bird feeder is right above here, and it looks like perhaps the birds missed a couple of seeds. I'm excited to have sunflowers growing!

My tomatoes still look good:


The bougainvillea that I was loving is no longer booming with blooms, but now the one by the shed is.


I've been noticing some webbing on some of my mango leaves, and some of the leaves are chewed up. So when I went to the fruit tree sale today, I took a couple of leaves in a bag. I gave it to a girl that works at ECHO and asked her if she knew what it was. Just as I was handing it to her, I spotted a large spider running through the bag.


"Whoa!", I said, "There's a big spider in there." "Yeah,that's probably what's making the webs on the leaves. That's actually a good thing!"

Yeah. Right. I know that spiders are very useful in the garden, and I love to have them do their thing in secrecy and out-of-sight. However, having arachnophobia, I do NOT want to see them running through a bag I'm holding and knowing that they were on a leaf that I cut from my tree!

When we got home, we let the spider go out by the mango tree.


We hope that he kills many nasty bugs for us.

So it was a really nice day. I finally got some of the trees that I've been wanting, I discovered that I have sunflowers growing, and I learned that I don't have a bad infestation of caterpillars or something on my mango, but just a camouflaged spider that will keep me on my toes now whenever I'm around the mango!