Harvest Monday-September 23, 2013

Not too much in the way of a harvest today.  It is a transition time in the central Florida vegetable garden with fall veggies still a ways from harvesting and the last of the spring/summer ones slowing production to almost nothing.  Most of the pepper plants planted in March are looking haggard and will be pulled this week.  Gonna leave some in to try to overwinter in the hopes they restart production in the spring.  In this part of the country, peppers and tomatoes can be kept growing year round, for the most part, although they aren't in fruit production the whole time.  I just pulled a Mountain Magic tomato plant that I planted in the tower garden (an aeroponic setup) last summer.  I, absentmindedly, let the reservoir get low on both water and nutrients while we were in England and, coupled with the heat, it just couldn't recover properly.  This year, I plan to leave two Tabasco peppers, three Yummy Snacking peppers and, possibly, a jalapeño.  All six have grown very tall and lush and are covered in blossoms.  Other than some carpenter ants on the Tabascos, I see no signs of disease or other bugs.

Does any one else keep peppers going throughout the year?  I wonder if pruning and potting them would help or is it better to just leave them and see what happens?  Sounds like another experiment, and I love a good garden experiment!

Here's the small harvest from this rainy Monday morning:

Hot and sweet peppers, many of which were picked as they started the transition from green to red and are, therefore black.  Could have left them to ripen more, but the snails are back in full force and I didn't want to risk losing them.  

Two key limes

Various herbs- from left, clockwise:  chives, oregano, sweet basil, purple basil, Greek columnar basil, sage, rosemary, thyme, and bay.  My tiny bay laurel is looking very rusty, have to look into spraying it.  I'd hate to lose such a beautiful plant.

I apologize for the lighting in these photos.  I picked in a light drizzle of rain and natural light was hard to come by this morning.

I am chomping at the bit to dig up my beds of sweet potatoes but the wet weather is making it impossible for me do that.  If I had planned well, I could have done it Saturday afternoon.  We had a dry day before, but the lawn sprinklers came on and soaked the beds once again.   They say it's best to stop watering prior to digging.  Dry potatoes means less chance of damage to the skins I suppose.  It poured yesterday afternoon and all night last night so, looks like maybe later this week will be my best chance.  Look for a big (hopefully) harvest next Monday!  

As always, harvest Monday is sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions.  Check out her blog and see what everyone else is harvesting this week.  Hope others fared better in their harvesting.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

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