Winter Garden - Week 2

I just wanted to post a quick photo update of the garden two weeks after planting. Not much has changed since the last post, except that a few more seedlings have sprouted up.

These are the transplanted herbs. From the left: Basil sprouts, parsley, another variety of parsley (and much healthier looking), and a small Oregano bush that used to be hanging in a pink pot.

Tomato plants, which are much bigger now.

Not very visible, but there seems to be some chamomile, marjoram, and thyme sprouts there.

Habanero and cayenne peppers.

Winter garden - week one

I should have planted three months ago, but my dear husband was still putting this thing together for me. He is so good to me, I just thought I should say. He's got a lot on his plate (teaching 7 periods!) but he still made the time to help me make my garden. We hauled in over a ton of manure from Home Depot for this project! There were no truck rentals available, so we just made several trips. I was a bit dubious about using only the manure because the HD sales dude told us we should not just buy the $1.75 bags of manure, but buy the $4.97 bags of "garden soil" instead. Let me tell you, I got the idea for using well-rotted cow manure from "experienced" gardeners who teach at Fairchild, and featured an article on the intarwebs somewhere. We actually saw them speak at our local library. They said that it's safer because it's disease-free. Well, the manure we bought looked like it had some mulch and sand mixed in, but at that point we already bought a TON of it- literally. Let me tell you, seven days after planting- I saw sprouts popping up all over! Oh joy! No more doubts now. Chamomile and Thyme which aren't supposed to germinate until about 14 - 28 days were the first! Among the others were Zucchini, Tomato, Marjoram, Onion, Peas, Dill, and Forget-me-nots. Yay! At this point, just about all of them have sprouted, but since I haven't been updating, I'm going to focus on one week each post. Here are some pics from the first week after planting (Jan 29 - Feb 4)

This is what the garden looked like approx. one week after planting the first seeds directly into the soil. I transplanted all my existing plants (the ones in the background will be added later). That includes parsley, oregano, sweet basil, Moneymaker tomatoes, and Yolo wonder bell peppers.

Here are some of the Thyme sprouts. I put stones next to where the seeds were planted so I could remember where to water.

The zucchini was one of the first ones to sprout. 

This is literally one day later.

This is two days after that.

Another two days later.

 You can see the second zucchini sprouted days after the first. I started to get worried after seeing just some of the seeds sprouting, so I planted extras to be safe.  Well, now I have three zucchinis, about 16 eggplants and 20 peppers. Oh well. The peas are an exception, I wanted to plant a bunch there. They were very early sprouters, and 100% of the peas planted sprouted eventually. I'm hoping these will make it worthwhile!

Sadly, one of the first casualties came this first week. A bastard cat used my garden as a colossal litterbox! I found cat scat in there and everything! >=(

I put these Moneymaker tomato plants in the ground, which I had been waiting to do for a while. They didn't look like they were doing well. It turns out it was really good for them to be planted in the ground because they took off from here.

It's pretty amazing. Three days after I transplanted the tomato plants into the ground, flowers opened up! Now I've got tomatoes growing! They weren't doing so well in the tiny pots I had them in. They have made so much progress since then.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

We have had a busy and productive past few weeks. My husband is on fire! He resolved for this new year to be more productive, and so far he's installed a mirrored jewelry cabinet (he bought as a gift), taken down the track spotlights in the kitchen and installed a new light- I can see now!

Here is the hubby in the kitchen with the original spotlights. Note that they do not light up the area well.

And here is the new and improved, bright and evenly lit kitchen! Note how much more lived in the house looks now as opposed to the previous pic, where we hadn't moved in yet. Jorge also hung the frames on the left recently, which deserve a post of their own. I cross-stitched a massive Save the Date and Wedding invitation. On the right is a double sided clock, imitating a vintage Parisian train station clock. We also finally got our wedding photo framed, and Jorge put that baby up!

Finally, Jorge is helping me plot that garden. I know, it's something we have been talking about since June! Since then, I've lost all my tomatoes and peppers to whitefly, but replanted a few weeks ago. So far, these are doing much better in the cooler weather. I think that the high humidity was a lucrative environment for pests.

This is what the "garden" plot looked like last time I posted about it. Now, here's what it looks like:

We got cedar instead of pine even though it's a bajillion times more expensive (and is very fragrant) because cedar is rot resistant. Those frames are going to house lots and lots of garden soil, and it will look great. Note in the upper left hand corner of the yard, the banana plants have flourished!

When I decided to start planting, I wanted to immediately dig up all the rocks in my little plot and fill it up with soil. I went and borrowed a dozen books from the library on the subject. A few months ago, all we just had were a tremendous pile of rocks that no one wants, and it was either too hot or too wet to plant anyway. The thing about a sudden urge to do something is that it doesn't work well with having to wait. I haven't been taking pictures of our compost bin, but it's actually broken down quite a bit as it is teeming with grubs! Timon and Pumba would love it in there. It's not really enough to amend let's say 200 lbs of topsoil, but I plan on adding some cheap cow manure compost (don't worry it doesn't smell) and using my compost as an organic side-dressing. Hold on, I can't help myself.

Manure. I hate manure.

I still have some plants that are somehow alive. This is the second batch, the first (as you saw in past posts) did not survive the whiteflies and blight. Well, the oregano and succulents did.

Here's my Oregano and sprouts of Sweet Basil. As you can see, the Oregano is doing well.

Here we have the new tomatoes and bell peppers, and a tray of butterfly flowers.

So, the weather is nice and our one week cold snap is over. This weekend we are going to fill that baby with soil and transplant my garden- or bust. The good thing is that with all the work that we (Jorge) put into it, it will last years to come, and there's always next October...

Still Alive..ish

So, the idea of gardening lost a little steam after my tomato plants started to die. I don't think it was the heat per se that did it. Maybe it was the rain. Actually, it's probably a combination of the two. I planted some stuff too early. It wasn't like I even used store bought seed, I just planted seed from produce we used. At any rate, the tomatoes are hanging on for dear life:

 They seem to be suffering from Southern Blight and whiteflies.

My peppers have been infected too, and are also being chewed away by an unknown pest. The one above is the healthiest looking of the bunch. I've caught snails on them before, but am not sure that snails have been able to reach the peppers at this point.
My herbs are doing pretty well for now.

The top three are the Oregano plants that have survived.

Above is my Parsley plant.

I haven't done anything to the bananas and just look at them!
I went to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden last weekend and brought home two more succulents to add to my collection:

The succulents have been troopers. They survive so much neglect. I'll try not to give up on the whole gardening thing altogether, but I may just scale back to a small handful of plants that I'll plant in October.

Still Alive: my potted garden is surviving the summer

Things are growing, but not as well as they could be. Maybe because I haven't been babying the plants so much and whiteflies are a big problem with the tomatoes right now. They are the only plants I have outside, the rest are in the screened patio (which is kinda crowded now).

Oh, I almost forgot. When I said that we only had our tomato plants outside, that wasn't true. We have a new addition! My mom told us that my brother dug up a banana baby that their plant propagated, but it was sitting out for days without soil or water. It looked dead. But lo & behold, it sprouted new growth! It even produced two offshoots of its own. We put it in a pot for the time being because we needed a place to put it immediately.

Below are my poor tomatoes. Still getting taller, but showing signs of distress from those whiteflies:

I really need to stake the tomatoes. I kinda don't know what I'm doing.

The first parsley picture is one I planted after the bottom picture. The top picture was planted about 5 weeks ago, and the bottom picture was about 8 weeks ago. It sort of hasn't grown in a while. The thing that I find the strangest is that when the first one sprouted, it was tiny. The second one immediately was enormous (and healthy looking) from day one.

Above: My Oregano plant. It's shaped like a cyclone: It is tiny near the root and large on top. Not sure why that happened...

Above: My beautiful hen & chicks plant (Echeveria Amoena I think). I broke off a leaf and gave it to my grandmother-in-law, and it already grew a rosette within a month. Cool!

Finally, my bell pepper. I really want this one to succeed. I so would love homegrown peppers! It's grown so much since the first post I made about them less than a month ago.

Garden update

I've been busy this week with my Link cross stitch. I can't think about gardening all the time, it gets boring waiting for things to grow. I'm disappointed that my Cilantro and Chives still haven't shown the slightest sign of life. My Oregano sprouts have been doing well, but are are tiny as heck!

The photo below is one of my three parsley sprouts.

I love how the "true leaves" that first come out are like teeny, tiny versions of those trademark leaves we recognize from the grocery store. 

This (above) is one of my bell peppers.

I tried them on the sill, but I don't think they were getting enough light. I tried them outside next but I think it's been too hot (it hasn't rained in like three days). I guess summer in Miami isn't the best planting season, although I do have these nifty $1 pots from Ikea to haul them around in.

My tomatoes are growing very well, but I've had to patrol for whiteflies. Again, summer...

The leaves are aromatic.... I can't wait till I see them start to flower!