The Fall Garden.

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The last of the summer goodies.

I harvested 20 cantaloupe and 15 watermelons, plus several bags of okra and cucumbers.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Some of the new veggies.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

MY POTATO HILL.

The hill is the hole. It measures 2'x2'x16" deep. At the moment it has 6" of compost in it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The Fall garden is now 3 weeks old. This is my 4th garden, and the plants generally are much improved over the past efforts.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

More of the young veggies.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My honeydew melon seeds are sprouting.

The U of Florida sez honeydew melons are a pain in the ass here in the Sunshine State. Its too damp here, and honeydews prefer semi-arid climes.

But the Fall months in Florida are dry with low humidity, so I figure I can grow honeydews now.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Last Saturday I went to HOME DEPOT for fertilizer and caught a seminar about veggies presented by Burpee Seeds. The information was mostly bullshit but I kept my mouth shut.

The bullshit part involved probabilities presented as absolutes. IE, the speaker claimed that summer gardens in Florida are impossible because of the heat and bugs. Not true. I harvested 100s of okra, 15 watermelons, and maybe 20 cantaloupes from my summer garden. Plus enough cucumbers to make one gallon of pickles. I suspect that the the speaker calculated the enthusiasm of gardeners for toil and trouble, and concluded that summer gardening was impossible for them. Next summer I plan to cover more of the plants with burlap and see if its possible to grow cool weather veggies like broccoli, spinach, cabbage in the summer.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My cantaloupes are setting fruit 4 weeks after planting seeds. Leaves are huge, forest green, and have a waxy gloss. This garden I fill each container with 40 pounds of manure compost and toss in a tin can of Miracle Gro twice a week. The improvement is about 100% over the last garden, and my cantaloupes were large, then!

Manure-compost costs about $1.40 per sack.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Pix Of The Garden.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Here's a trick I just discovered.

Ants love to suck new okra pods dead. So here's how to defeat them.

Get a cardboard toilet-paper spool, cut it once lengthwise, spray the outside of the spool with bug spray and put the spool around the base of the plant. The poison never contacts the plant.

The ants have to climb up the spool, over the poison. They wont do it.

Works on tomato stalks, too.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The Fall garden is doing better than previous efforts. I learn new tricks with each garden, and this one is no exception. Like removing blossoms when the vine has enough fruit on it.

A new trick that seems to work is changing the fertilizer blend once the fruit is set. After the fruit set I changed from a blend thats high in phosphorus (for flowers) to one thats high in nitrogen (for leaves). The leaves make sugar for the fruit. So far, so good.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Tomato, Watermelon, Collards. My Honeydew Melon vines are setting fruit. Honeydew Melons dont do well in Florida cuz of the heat and humidity, so I did well to get fruit at all. We'll know the story in 30 days!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I started the Winter garden: Broccoli, Spinach, Tomatoes, Chinese Cabbage, Cantaloupe, and Honeydew Melons.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My Honeydew vines are setting fruit. I credit our unusual weather conditions. Todays high temp is 80F, the low this AM was 45F. I cant remember the last time it rained. These conditions suppress mildew and fungus, which are the main culprits for Honeydew failure in Florida. Anyway, if my luck holds harvest is 30 days away.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Here's a new trick for you.

Cucumbers are hard to find on the vine. So I use clothespins and spray paint them orange and purple and white, then clip the clothespin near the cucumber. Works well.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Be careful buying commercial compost. The cheap stuff really isnt compost; its a blend of manure, sawdust/sand, and shredded leaves. All the organic material should be decomposed, and it isnt. In compost you shouldnt be able to identify the ingredients by visual inspection. And if you spot sawdust you know the compost process isnt completed.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Cantaloupe, water melons, tomatoes, green beans, and cucumbers.

Note the purple clothespins I use to locate cucumbers.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Harvesting cucumbers today.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Made One Gallon Of Bread & Butter Pickles This Am.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Dill Spears Made Today.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Garden Pix

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Made more pickles yesterday, plucked more cucumbers, and harvested the first of the cantaloupes. I'm discovering, too, that garden book and articles are often filled with nonsense, or omit significant information.

Like.....seeds that float are sterile. Not true. I have Honeydew melons on vines grown from seeds that floated.

Here's another: Root depth is important for plant stability NOT water or nutrient collection. Roots prefer to spread out, not down, to feed.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The garden is rolling along.

 

[SeaCat]

Looking good.

I have never tried container gardening. I don't think the park I live in would allow it.

I have been growing Roses and have about ten Pepper Bushes going right now. (The Peppers are about fifty fifty between Japones and Little Birds.)

Cat

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SEACAT

Thanks!

Next Spring I plan to arrange my plot into a formal garden arrangement with a bird-bath, stumble-stones, and a pergola for vines. More...I want to find more flowering veggies like the okra, which is a hibiscus and makes beautiful red/yellow blooms. The Sunflower works well, too. There are all kinds of schemes for disguising a garden.