Not Much Gardening Going On

I haven't been in the garden for more than a few minutes all week.  For one, it's been rainy here and, also, I've got a lot going on inside the house.  I'll get to that in a minute.

I did grab my phone and snap a couple of pics of the garden.

The garlic that I just planted last week has popped up and is growing at an insane pace.  This picture was two days ago and it's almost twice this tall now !  I'm sure the 80 degree + weather has something to do with it.  Daytona Beach tied a record high today.

Lettuce and peas (in the middle) are doing well.  The Lincoln pea seeds floated above ground after a heavy rain, but I pushed them back down and they have now sprouted.

Teeny, tiny Brussels sprouts.  I've never gotten them to grow so we will see if these make it to a size that's edible.

The grocery store gerbera daisy that I used as a centerpiece for my daughter's bday party last spring was planted in a corner of one bed and has been blooming, off and on, all year.

That's about it in the garden.  In other news, my kitchen remodel that turned into a kitchen/bathroom/living/dining room remodel is coming along.  

This is my formal living and dining area as of today:

 

Our close friends own a wood flooring company and they spent the last two days ripping up hardwood maple floors that had been water damaged after the washer leaked through the wall.  All the furniture from these two rooms (well one big room really) is shoved into the great room behind the French doors. 

The guys also semi gutted the master bathroom.  I am so grateful they did all the work before my husband came home from a trip.  Now he can rebuild the shower and tile everything and it saved days.  Until it's done, this is what I have:

The new kitchen is close to being done.  We only replaced the upper cabinets and had matching doors and drawers made for the bottom.  Some were the wrong size so they had to be reordered and the filler pieces and crown and trim moldings still need to go up. We also need to pull the microwave forward so it's flush with the cabinets, not recessed.  Oh yeah, and backsplash tile. Ok , I guess it's not really that close to being done.  Wishful thinking I suppose. 

It's getting there.  We started three weeks ago and I can't wait to have a finished house back. 

All this chaos makes me anxious, not to mention the money being spent.  We have been in savings mode for so long, I feel weird shelling out so much.  Luckily, we have friends who are in these types of businesses and it's saving us a fortune. Another close friend owns the cabinetry shop and, yet another, is a master at painting and tile work.  He even works for a home cooked meal, something he, being an airline pilot and single, doesn't get too often!

 

I'll post finished pictures when done and, maybe, in the meantime, the weather will cooperate and I can finish my late winter planting. 

Time to go and try and find a clean place to sit-wish me luck!

Harvest Monday, September 16, 2013

Harvested this morning: a mix of hot peppers, sweet peppers and sweet potatoes.

The sweet potatoes are small but were started from clippings about a month after I planted the main crop.  Had to dig up this part of the bed to make room for some early plantings of kohlrabi, brussels sprouts and broccoli.  I did dig up quite a few baby roots that went into the compost so, it's possible, I'll have a second harvest from the compost bin in the spring!

 

Every Monday, Daphne's Dandelions hosts Harvest Monday, a way for you to see what others in the blogosphere are harvesting.  It's amazing to see how the different areas of the country harvest completely different crops.

It's another hot morning in Florida.  The temps are already into the 80's and it's very humid with thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon.  

Got the new beds assembled.  I was lazy and bought the kits rather than build them myself.  They look nice but won't last as long since they are built with wimpy boards, not the 2" rough cedar that I love.  Here is the before and afters.  These beds are for potatoes and garlic that won't be delivered for another month or two so I'll line them with cardboard to kill the sod then flip the sod upside down and fill the beds with soil.

I moved the recently potted blueberries to their temporary home along the western boundary of the garden.  The pool enclosure will start a few feet to the right and, once built, I will move the blueberries over as a privacy hedge along the screen.  That will give me a decent pathway to the right of the new beds.

Here are the other new beds put in yesterday.

The top shows the potted blueberries where I dug them up and now the new beds have taken their place.  The far beds were built around the existing blackberry bushes that I'll move in the winter when they are semi dormant.  The garlic planned for those beds will go in after being chilled in the fridge for a month or so.  It's a mini experiment to see if the pre chilled ones grow bigger bulbs than the ones planted without chilling.

After looking at these pictures I realize how badly I need to mulch the walkways.  Here is a shot I took in the spring after the mulch was put down.  It really pulls the whole garden together and makes it so much cleaner looking.

Well, that's it for today.  I need to get out and start pruning trees before we hit the 90's, again.

Thanks for reading!

Jen