Garden Update: May 10, 2009!

In the garden, as in life, some things work and some don't. I spent 2 months caring for a tray full of young eggplant and pepper seedlings only to see them wither and die as the sun relentlessly beat down and they got tired of waiting for the rain. Then miraculously little sprouts of things I didn't even know I planted shot out from the same dirt, volunteers from the compost that found their way into the mix. Survival of the fittest. It still hasn't rained but once in 2 months so we've taken to keeping the 5 gallon bucket in the shower and recycling the dishwater. In some ways the drought is good, forcing the roots to go deeper and hopefully passing on these drought hardy traits to the next generation, but mostly it sucks, the rain barrels have long been dry and hand watering is getting old. I still dont think I can get completely free from the supermarket yet, but we're getting there. Local edible log: Suriname cherries, elder berries, mulberries, grapefruit, avacado, chaya. Here's what the garden looks like tonight...


This squash that has taken over the bikini garden is a volunteer. We planted okra and eggplants and yardlongs in here. The eggplants (which I grew from organic seed) mostly died, the okra are holding on but are tiny so far compared to last year...

The two young eggplants that are growing well were bought as plants most likely grown in some non-organic soil mix. I will eat them anyway.This was a cool surprise from a little packet of seeds with directions in chinese. I thought I was planting some kind of Asian summer green, but today I pulled up a tiny radish. It was very spicy. These things are doing surprisly well in the heat.A proud moment, my sunflowers have outgrown me...

Mayan spinach returning to life after being declared dead from the freeze.

Squash in bloom

Sunflowers

Baby Squash

Yard Long Beans climbing

Bikini update

After the overwhelming response to the bikini garden, I decided to post an update...
Really not much to see here...

A couple eggplants, some squash, and some left over broccoli up in the corner where it's shadier. We've had one day of rain in the last 2 months or so. I filled up both rain barrels (110 gallons) and ran around the house placing buckets under all the valleys in the roof line. I managed. That water lasted a couple weeks. If they can't produce in the drought, they die. Survival of the fittest in this yard. More updates to come...

Bikini Garden

Finally went all out and dug up the back yard.

a short history of the white house garden

Michelle Obama's Garden Plan.

The NY Times published Michelle Obama's garden blueprint today. Looks a little boxy to me.
(thanks punk rock permaculture)

Seminole Heights Community Gardens

Alright! the Seminole Heights Community Garden Website is up and work on the first garden location is to begin soon (just in time for the most severe water restrictions in ages).

gardening gets hip

There are many positives to this recession. One of them is the slowing down of the industrial capitalist death culture, even if just a hair, and making people rethink their values.

With the recession in full swing, many Americans are returning to their roots — literally — cultivating vegetables in their backyards to squeeze every penny out of their food budget.

Community Gardening is now a Growing Trend, so let's criminalize it!

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...

White Sapote

Got a White Sapote from the USF Botanical Garden Sale a couple weeks ago.

Gondules

Gondules or Pigeon Peas are considered the national dish of Puerto Rico. We've been harvesting a bunch recently, which are delicious raw or cooked.

Sam's Punkhouse Papaya

My friend Tai Chi Sam the Gardener has some pretty cool gardens going on at various people's houses around town. He's got one in the back of the punk house down the street and just got his first papaya:

weird mushrooms in the garden

Loofah and Papaya!

What looks like bird shit on the fruit above is actually Papain, a milky sap that is used medicinally to treat digestive disorders, tenderize meats, and remove tapeworms from the body. It also makes a great facial creme. The Thai folks make a mighty fine papaya salad with the unripe fruit but I mainly wait for them to get big and orange and juicy and make some kickin smoothies!

Gardening Update: 10.21.08

Well, it's been a hell of a month here in the gardening world. Here's what we got:

Yard Long Beans that we planted back in August mad produced. This is just a fraction of what we've been eating and giving to friends. We're on to the the second generation now.

The lovely Katie (before her departure to our colonized Pacific island paradise) models the beans here.

All the avacados trees in the hood have been kicking down some goodness:

This is a Stapelia gigantia. In bloom, it smells like rotting meat...

Garden Report: 9.22.008

Hello Garden Freaks! It's been a wonderful month in the world of gardening here in sunny hot nasty traffic-snarled red state hell idiot loving 21st century slavery having Floriduh! I'll tell ya, if I didnt have a garden to escape to once in a while, I'd be going completely berserk in this cess pool of blissful ignorance, blight, and moral decay. Luckily for me I do have a garden and here's what's new:

We picked the watermelons:
The first one was a Moon and Stars and was pretty juicy but not very sweet. The coolest part were the natural water movement spiral patterns similar to a hurricane or a galaxy that you can kind of see in the picture to the left. Very celestial. It took about a week to eat and I finally just ended up making some watermelon smoothie toward the end. We'll be eating the others this week. In some sad news, this watermelon just didn't have what it takes to make it in my yard. Shame...

Between working full time and getting beat up by the cops and thrown in jail in Minnesota, I did miss some crucial gardening time. Today marks the fall equinox and I was hoping to have some more stuff in the ground by now to kick in the fall growing season but, well-ya do what ya can...

The Asparagus beans are doing pretty good:

And the papayas are coming along. I've lost track of how many I've planted in the yard, but it's more than 20:

Also got some loofah climbing up the fence:

We also acquired a Meyer Lemon tree, several pineapples and some succulents recently but I didn't get around to taking pictures yet. I'm a lazy blogger. That's it for now, lots more exciting news from the garden later, including an interview with Sam: the guerrilla garden who maintains several gardens around central Tampa-all at other people's houses...

Garden Report: 8.18.08

I haven't spent a great deal of time in the garden over the last couple weeks due to that dad burned persistent August mugginess. However, the garden's been doing just fine without me with daily rains and plenty of sunshine. Here are some pictures of the first watermelons I've ever grown from seed in my entire life.
This is a "Moon and Stars" watermelon grown from heirloom seeds. I can't recall where I got them, but they were "organic" according to the package. Below we have another kind of watermelon that I must have mixed in the soil when I was planting. I'm not very scientific about it unfortunately and I have no idea what kind this is...
...but it looks delicious and I'm pleased as punch to see them because I was starting to get pissed off at this watermelon patch taking over the yard with no watermelons on it.

I also picked this off the vine this week:
It's a butternut squash that was volunteered up from the compost from seeds we threw in there a few months back. This is the third one we've grown in our humble little garden.

We been munching down on okra purty regularly over the past few weeks too. Sometimes I just eat it raw right of the stalk. Pretty damn good! But it's even better sauted up with onions and peppers from the garden.

In other news, the back yard just got 19 Asparagus bean seedlings planted in the ground from seeds bought at the Oceanic Market in downtown Tampa:
These beans are also called "Yard Long" Beans because they get this long.





















That's about it for now, stay tuned for more exciting news from my garden!