The Adventures of Nathan and Amy
Traveling, Gardening, Shenanigans
They say this is when you should harvest crookneck yellow squash, before the skin gets too thick, at about 3″ to 5″ depending on the variety. Pick early and often and you’ll get a bigger harvest. Here’s a pic of one with the blossom still attached. I picked three like this from the garden this morning, ate two of them raw. Tasty!
Tomatoes (cherry and solar fire), peppers, pole beans, soy beans, peas (doing ok so far, wando is a heat resistant var), cucumbers, squash, marigolds, vitamin greens (tatsoi), basil, parsley, rosemary, thyme, mint, oregano.
Starting from seed now: moringa, chamomile, more tomatoes and peppers, night jasmine.
Yesterday morning I spent about an hour in the community garden, harvesting some green beans, cherry tomatoes, basil, and dill, and weeding and watering the three 5′ x 40′ plots. As summer begins to settle on Central Florida, everything both good and bad begins to grow like crazy.
The cherry tomatoes and pole beans have been our best producers by far, and though we have had some problems with tomato fruit worms in the past month or so, the bug situation hasn’t really picked up until now. I’m seeing all sorts of interesting things going on, mostly on the tomato plants. I have heard that Florida is “tomato hell”…
I’m not sure what the above leaf damage is from, nor what I’m looking at below, although they look like they might be red aphids?
Bugs aren’t the only thing in the garden, however – there are some glorious flowers! The only thing I would do differently with these is plant them earlier in the season, both for the enjoyment and for the magnetic effect they have on bringing beneficial bugs into the garden.
I even heard, and then saw, a majestic pileated woodpecker yesterday morning, chilling at the top of a dead tree:
I’m working on getting the names of all the plants in our yard (common and scientific) so I can learn about them, take better care of them, move them if they need more/less shade, etc.
Anyone know what these are?
Still unknown…
Century Plant / Agave (tequilana?)
Sansevieria trifasciata / Mother-in-law’s Tongue
Still unknown…
Vinca rosea / Periwinkle
Kaempferia laotica / Peacock Ginger