Back to the Garden

It's been over 4 months since I last posted here. I got lazy...but also extremely busy with life and work and the garden suffered for it. My apologies to the garden and all my loyal blog readers who have been clamoring to find out the latest juicy tidbits from the DirtGod (let me know if there's more than like 1 of you out there by leaving a comment) I promise to be more "with it" from here on out or until I leave town or the computer dies or I lose internet access or I just plain lose in the garden: which is what is happening currently. The Garden Underdog I should have named this blog, as with the current Florida drought, growing anything in the ground is an uphill battle-even though it's flat here.

Because I realize everyone on the interweb is dying to know, here's a recap dear readers, on what's happened on this little patch of dirt since that last post back in late October about that White Sapote I bought at USF...

The yard long beans came out good:

We got two separate harvests of them. Then the damn aphids came and I had to pull em out.

By November we picked the last of the okra and tomatoes...

They were delicious.

Mid-November we went to a wedding out in Polk County and i was mesmerized by the spanish moss:

This is what our Starfruit tree looked like back in December before the first freeze:

It looks about the same now but without any leaves...


Winter in Florida is generally the best time of year: Mild and cool, an escape form the hohum (heat and humidity) and citrus everywhere. But this year Tampa had the misfortune to get hit by not one, nor two, but THREE hard freezes. My yard transformed from green tropical wonderland to brown-grey deadzone literally overnight.:

It really is enough to make ya cry, or at least rethink all the sensitive tropical stuff I've planted here. We lost a dozen papaya trees (already suffering from downy mildew anyway) and the two mangos I planted when we moved in last spring.Tampa is considered a sub-tropical zone and I guess that's why I rarely ever see the more exotic fruits (guava, mango) really thriving here. Interestingly, just a mile or two south it didnt freeze. South Tampa and St. Petersburg's tropical fruit trees look great. The bright side, besides identifying where the micro-climate areas of the yard are, I'm hoping maybe the freeze struck down that damn mildew hanging out on the papaya leaves. More on that later...