27 September – Day 24
Look what sprouted! Looks like our arugula sprouted after just 3 days of germination. We were all super excited to see this!
24 September – Day 21
We used Dick Raymond’s Gardening Year as a reference for our garden in New Jersey. He says in the book “if you don’t lose crops, you didn’t start early enough.” Well, I would say we started at the perfect time as some of the lettuce, spinach, and kale just didn’t germinate. So, we did a take #2 with seeds and planted again, this time with arugula, and then filled out some of the remaining squares with some additional cucumbers, as well as peas. We’ll see how they grow!
19 September – Day 16
The garden is a daily interest and inspiration for the family. Every morning before school, we head out to check in on our progress and it’s amazing what happens day by day. We finally realized that the kale and spinach did not germinate. For the next planting, I’m going to try to start indoors from seed to allow them to sprout before transplanting to the garden.
The pole beans are doing great. They quickly acclimated to their new home (the lattice) and have worked over the past week at getting snuggly with a firm footing. We have on our ‘to-do’ list to add the second half of the lattice within the next week, before they take off.
Remember all of the trees we cut down and turned into mulch? Well, I took that mulch and added a layer to the plants that were already established. The mulch adds as a layer of insulation, keeping the ground moist (though that’s not a problem now given all of the rain we’ve had lately…we’re supposed to be entering the dry period, but there’s no sign that the rain is going to let up any time soon.). The mulch also protects the top layer of soil, preventing it from getting too hot which is all too common with our intense FL sun.
The flower that fell off of the hot pepper plant, well that turned into a little baby pepper (yeah!)
We also have a new addition to the garden: scallions! We add them to the weekly salad that we make and decided to take the bottoms with the roots and add them in. You can see how they are taking off, noting that they prefer the right bed over the left.
10 September – Day 7
Today is day 7! Everything has sprouted with the exception of the kale and spinach. Our FL everglade tomato is starting to ripen and I cannot wait to taste it! This weekend we will be focusing on installing the trellis on the back beds so the cucumbers and beans can climb.
6 September 2021
Nothing like observing the first seed popping through! Straight Eight Cucumbers for the win! Lesson Learned: It’s the little things in life…so often our eyes are focused on the big things, but it’s the little, day to day wins, that make life so enjoyable!
3 September 2021
The Planting
Today, after a very long day adding finishing touches, we planted the garden! We spent some time with graph paper, planning out the location of our veggie’s. We also decided to put the same veggie in each of the four beds to determine their preferred location as each bed gets different light requirements. (Sunlight) The left side gets direct sun from about 8:30-1:30 with dappled sunlight for the remainder of the afternoon through the pool screen and the overhang of the crape myrtle branch. We contemplated cutting the branch, but I was afraid that would cause too much direct sunlight on the plants. (Planting) This year is very much a learning process of what we can grow. We planted the following from plants we picked up at Home Depot, Lowe’s and our local nursery, Lukas:
- Plants
- Eggplant (2): Black Beauty, Ichiban
- Peppers (5): Cowhorn, Carmen – Italian, Cubanelle (3)
- Tomatos (6): San Marzano, Heatmaster, Biltmore, Husky Cherry Red, Sun Sugar, Florida Everglade
- Seeds
- Pole Bean – Kentucky Wonder
- Beets – Detroit Dark Red
- Carrots – Colorful
- Cucumbers – Straight Eight
- Kale – Dwarf Blue Curled
- Lettuce (2) – Black Seeded Simpson & Outredgeous
- Spinach – Bloomsdale Long Standing
Finally, as we were planting, we made sure to add some Organic Earthworm Castings to enhance the soil & the growth. All in all, a VERY productive day!
Central Florida Family Gardening 