I'm back, I'm dirty and I need help...

I realize I've been gone for a really long time and the list of excuses is long and irrelevant. However, the main reason for my absence is a gardening dilemma that I don't know how to fix. The good news is I've decided to return to the soil and find a way to make it work - even if it's far from perfect.

Here's my grubby garden-loved hand yesterday!


If you've been a long-time reader, you might recall how I let the garden go last summer because it just got too hot and rainy to go out there and weed everyday. One day away from the garden led to a week that led to the entire summer and next thing I knew I couldn't even see my once gorgeous raised beds.


When we finally cleared it out, I discovered - to my horror - that the weeds had gone to seed and my wonderful "Mel's Mix" soil was full of weed seeds. About two weeks after that long weekend back in September of clearing out the weeds I noticed the beds were green again - filled with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny evil weeds.

So I gave up and let the garden go again. You need to know I'm not proud to admit this, but it's what happened and it's time I came clean. It was easy to give up in the late fall. I'd already missed the Fall planting season, we were busy with Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and then we had a small stretch of cold weather that wasn't good for planting anyway.

Then January rolled around and ever since I started this blog I've always been AWOL in January. It's a month full of birthday parties for our family and it's easy to forget the garden.

But then February rolled around and I looked over at my once-loved garden and thought it's about damn time I roll up my sleeves and figure this monster out. If not, I'm one of those annoying people that "dabbled in gardening" as a hobby and let it go, like quitting scrapbooking or knitting or something. That was never my intention. This garden wasn't meant to be a fad. It was meant to feed my family.


So I went out there and cleared the garden - again. Luckily it wasn't quite so bad this time around. The problem is that I have evil thick Florida grass growing straight through the landscaping cloth at the bottom of the beds. Let this be a lesson to new Florida gardeners - no matter what people tell you and no matter what it says in Mel's SFG book, one sheet of landscaping cloth WILL NOT protect your garden from thick Florida grass and weeds growing straight up through the bottom of your garden.

Farmer B was frustrated that we have bare patches in the yard where grass will not grow, but underneath our gardening beds - underneath landscaping cloth - removed from the sun and air, we have thick grass growing like gangbusters.


I know this photo isn't a good one, but it's the bottom of the garden and you can see some of the thick grass roots growing straight up through the cloth. The grass roots pierced the landscaping cloth like ice picks. It's really quite remarkable. This has happened all throughout the beds. You have to imagine that on the ends of each of these little shoots were 3-5 feet of long thick grass snaking throughout the garden.

So now I have to decide what to do. As far as I can tell I have three options:

1) Spray the garden with Roundup Weed and Grass killer. This will hopefully remove the grass and weeds and give me a fresh start. The problem with that is I know too much about the evils of Monsanto and don't want my family to eat vegetables that have been grown in soil doused in those chemicals. But I know if I don't find a way to get rid of the grass and weeds I won't be able to grow vegetables in it anyway.

2) Remove all the soil from the beds, lay down something a lot hardier than landscaping cloth - some sort of Kevlar bullet-proof vest material - and then put the soil back in. I mentioned this to Farmer B who gave me the "you're on your own with this crazy scheme" speech. I'll be honest, it does seem like an insane amount of work, but maybe it is the way to go. I'm not sure what I should put down under the beds if I do this. Although it won't help me with the problem of all the weed seeds that are obviously in the soil.

3) Just add some compost to the garden, try to stay on top of the weeds and wing it. This seems like the most likely option, but I'm afraid that the thick grass coming through EVERYWHERE and all the weed seeds will make it too hard for me to stay on top of things and I'll be right back where I was last September.

Anyone else got an option for me? I really want to plant again...I'm in. I'm committed, but I don't know the "cure" for what ails my garden.

Deep down at the bottom we found a garden

As I promised, this weekend was THE weekend. The one where Farmer B and I tried to turn the thicket of shoulder-high weeds back into a garden. I have been dreading it since the beginning of the summer. I anticipated it being a horrible experience with oppressive heat and bugs... and holy heat wave - was I ever right.



Farmer B started by pulling up the anti-puppy fence that we keep around the garden and immediately both dogs dove in to the long grass. We ended up accidentally breaking the underground electric dog fence while pulling up the garden fence, which was an added bonus. Include an added trip to Home Depot to buy wire repairing equipment to this wonderful task.


Did I mention this weekend is Farmer B's birthday too? Yeah, he's a dedicated husband when it comes down to it.

Then Farmer B used the push trimmer to hack through the weeds in an attempt to find the raised beds. Surprisingly they were still under there - burried, but intact.


Did I mention how hot it was? Luckily the heat index was just UNDER 100 degrees so we didn't pass out, but contemplated it several times.

After he whacked down all the grass and weeds around the raised beds it was my fun-filled job to pull up the masses of weeds that had found a new home in the raised beds. As I was doing this with sweat running down my arms and spiders the size of cats running up my arms I really wondered if it was all going to be worthwhile at the end of the day.


When I got one bed about halfway cleared I decided to grab Clementine from the chicken run and toss her into the bed to save me from the creepy-crawlies who were hell-bent on latching on to my face as I pulled up 3-foot long weeds. My dainty (useless) yellow chicken spent 2 seconds in the blistering direct sun in the garden, made an angry bokking noise, then made a bee-line for the shady woody area all the way on the other side of the yard before I could even grab the camera. Pathetic chicken.

Then I decided to bring out Maggie and put her to work. I tossed her into the raised bed and went back to weeding. It worked out GREAT! She grabbed two large spiders and some wormy-leggy thing before becoming overwhelmed from the heat and making a bee-line to the same shady patch of trees where Clementine was relaxing.




Pathetic. Both of them.


At the end of the day I had a sore back, a visible garden area and one de-weeded raised bed. I was beyond exhausted, but felt good that it was done… but felt angry that I still had the other bed to clear.


On Day 2 I returned to the garden (sans useless sun-shy chickens) and pulled the weeds out of the second bed. I was happy to see that the spiders were just as comfortable in this bed as they were in the other one. I was a bit afraid that some big-fanged 8-legged creature might not ruin my day by jumping at my arm. Luckily my fear was unwarranted.

I did find something very interesting buried in this bed though…


Carrots! Who knew? I didn't attempt to bring them inside since I'm sure they were woody and rubbery and weird, but it was a funny thing to see growing amongst the weeds.

At the end of day two, it was done. A weedless garden. Two weedless raised beds. Finally.


I figured that when I was done I'd have one of those "See what you get for not weeding all summer?" moments. I was wrong. Instead I had a "Gah - this was HORRIBLE - THIS is why I didn't go out into the garden all summer" moments.

I'm now faced with a couple of problems.

1) I'm convinced that these beds are now full of weed seeds just ready to sprout at their first opportunity. I'm not sure quite what to do about that. I do not have the resources to empty out the beds and buy all new compost, peat moss and vermiculite. So I'll have to think on this one since I did want to try a Fall planting…

2) I now have about 3 inches less of mix in the boxes as I did when I started. Regardless of what I decide, the boxes will have to be topped up in a big way before I ever plant again.

So there you have it. As my dad would say "Good job done." As I would say after doing this "@$%^ job done!"

The First Day :: A Fresh Start

I always enjoy the first day of the year. There's something about the newness of it all that feels quite refreshing to me. I decided to take Saffie out into the yard to check out the garden before a big cold front comes through later tonight.

It was a cool morning, with a slight drizzle, lots of leaves on the ground and a darkening sky. The cold front should bring highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s. It just felt like a New Year to me. I'm sure I won't be waxing poetic tomorrow when it's cold and I'm fetal on the couch unable to move because it's under 70 degrees.

When I walk through the yard, my view looks like this. I trip a lot these days.



If she gets distracted by a falling leaf and I get away from her, it doesn't last for long.



When you live in Florida you learn to really appreciate any little thing that smacks of winter. For me it's the changing leaves on the backyard trees.





We made it out to the garden, but something spooked Saffie.


The curled lips. The threatening bark. Are you quivering with fear? She was not a happy puppy.


Turns out the garden gnome is evil. It's something I've suspected for a long time.

With the cold weather coming, I'm sure I need to protect my garden. I've got lots of green tomatoes that won't handle a freeze well.


And how about these black-eyed peas? Any idea if they're ready to pick? Some pods are brown, some are green and some are greenish-brown. Any black-eyed pea experts have any advice for me?


I'll pick my bell peppers today and harvest some chard for another quiche.

But how about these strange little sprouts from the edges of my broccoli plant? Do you eat those? Do I cover them? We ate the big broccoli from the middle, but then these mini-broccoli started to grow.


Farmer B has modified the chicken coop to handle the cold weather so the only thing I need to worry about is the garden. I assume I can just chuck a sheet over it, but I think I need to read up on it all first. I've learned that going with my instincts is rarely the right decision when it comes to the garden.


The first day of 2010 was a very good day.

Score one point for the gardener!

The last time I updated you with details about my new SFG, I spread tales of carnage and gore complete with my own personal grim reaper. I'm not sure what happened between then and now, but things have really perked up. I gave the garden a nice bath of fish fertilizer, which is about the most vile-smelling substance on the face of the earth. It makes your entire garden smell like cat breath. Maybe the stink bath helped? Or maybe the garden just had to sort of grow into itself… but whatever it was things are growing surprisingly well.

Here are the two boxes. First the one on the left.


Then the one on the right.


The broccoli is coming in nicely, although the broccoli seeds I planted were duds - none of them sprouted, oddly enough. I'll take the one seedling I purchased and run with it since it's daring to survive.


The black eyed peas are nice and green and tall. I have no earthly idea how they grow or what they look like upon harvest or even how to cook them, so it's a given that these will be my best producers. If I have no idea how to eat a vegetable it's a given it'll be the only thing that grows. Hence my successful okra this summer. I'd like to add that I still have brand new okra plants that are growing up through our lawn with flowers and baby okra on them. Go figure.


Neither bell pepper plant looks especially healthy, but one has three bell peppers and the other has one bell pepper. They're all mishapen and twisted, but I'm down with that if they continue to grow. One bell pepper plant lasted less than a week under my care. RIP.


I've got three tomato plants doing well. One has small green tomatoes, one has tons of flowers and one isn't looking so great. Two out of three is a big fat win in my gardening book so I'll take it! Hell, one out of three is great in my book. I don't know at what point tomato plants decide that it's too wintery to keep growing, but I don't think they'll last into next year will they? That was rhetorical. The answer is obviously no. We're talking about my garden afterall. I'll be lucky if they survive the month.


The Kentucky Wonder beans have bounced back and have started slowly climbing up the trellis. I'm dying to see if any of these will survive my black thumb and actually produce. I'm definitely crossing my fingers for these. Farmer B is quite happy that his trellis is being used. I was about to glue dead bean plants to the trellis to make him feel better about building it when these little shoots started climbing up of their own accord.


The Swiss Chard seems to be doing well. I have no earthly idea when this is ready, how to harvest it or what to do with it once harvested. Do you cook it? Put it in with a salad or what? Once again, this is a guarantee that things will grow well in my garden. Any thoughts? Dare I chop this beast down and eat it?


The English peas aren't doing well at all. Please take some time to marvel at my awesome trellis complete with green tape and sticks. There are white flowers, but the plants are thin, yellowed and sickly. I'm guessing these will be chicken food before Thanksgiving.


I got a few radishes the other day, which was nice. Apparently any idiot can grow a radish so I won't brag about it. I had an egg in my pocket when I was pulling the radishes so it snuck into the photo too.


There's my big SFG update. I'm always surprised when I go out there and things are alive. The plants may quiver when I come near, but when I stay away from them for a couple of days they seem to thrive. I'm still not holding my breath that anything edible will come from the garden, but we're on the right track for once.

And you said I couldn't kill a SFG. I'm proving you all wrong.

I'll admit to being uncharacteristically optimistic about the plants in our two SFG raised beds. I think we did pretty good at approximating Mel's Mix and the weather hasn't been extreme so I thought we might just get a nice Late Fall-Early Winter crop from this planting. But, as is always the case with anything we plant, it isn't going as planned. I'd appreciate it if you'd all act shocked and surprised please.

First we'll talk about the Kentucky Wonder Beans. Farmer B built an awesome trellis for these little buggers (more on that later) and they sprouted wonderfully, but they're fizzling out fast. I noticed that the edges of the leaves were turning white last week. Now this week the plants are curling up and dying.



I am seriously the Gardening Grim Reaper. Anything I touch expires rapidly. Farmer B said I should wear gloves so my death-touch doesn't affect any more plants. It's very depressing. Here is a photo of me pointing at my dying plants.


I figured that maybe the Kentucky Wonder beans just weren't meant to be, but then I noticed that the yellow bush beans in the other box are starting to do the same thing! What gives???


On a bright note the broccoli and the black-eyed peas seem to not be suffering under the wrath of my black thumb.


But oddly enough one of my bell peppers has completely died - it didn't survive the transplant torture I put it through. One of the other bell peppers always seems to have red ants on it when I look at it, although I can see none in the rest of the garden. And the center leaves are all dark and curly and stunted-looking. The other bell pepper seems to be without issue - so far.


I have two squares of Bok Choy and they just aren't as healthy as I hoped they would be. A couple look like they might just live if I don't make eye contact with them, but most look like the one you see in the photo below - sort of a bedraggled limp mess.


So I'm not sure what to do with everything. The SFG book says I shouldn't need to fertilize, but maybe that's what everything needs. I wonder if I should be watering more, but I assumed 2-3 times a week with a watering can was enough (especially since it's rained a couple of times). We did have some hot weather when the garden was first planted with heat indices around 100 degrees for almost two weeks, but then we got a super-cold front with lows in the chilly 50s for a few days. Was it the temperature variation?

Or is it just the sickle I seem to carry with me when I visit the garden?

Discouraged I am.

Surprised I am not.

Growth Spurt

A couple of weeks ago I had the exciting job of beginning the Fall planting in our brand new raised beds. I found the Mel's Mix soil a bit weird to work with because it's so fine and moveable and very unlike the weird heavy thick sandy soil we had in our rows. I planted mostly seeds this time, but bought a couple of seedlings at Lowe's to jumpstart the garden and give me the instant splash of green I need to feel good. The thought of planting a seed-only garden gives me a serious case of gardening anxiety. I am just not "there" yet in my gardening journey.



Here's what went in:

Yellow bush beans - seeds
Green bush beans - seeds
Kentucky something-or-other pole beans - seeds
Garden peas - seeds
Black-eyed peas - seeds
Leeks - seeds
Carrots - seeds
Swiss Chard - plants
Parsnips - seeds
Cabbage - seeds
Romaine lettuce - plants
Green, Red and Yellow Bell Peppers - plants
Radish - seeds
Broccoli - seeds and 1 plant
3 types of tomatoes - plants

Turns out that I hadn't planned on the whole trellis system necessary for some of these climbing plants. Apparently the Kentucky-something-or-other beans and the black-eyed peas that my oldest son insisted on are both climbing, vining plants. Luckily I used my fine gardening skills to plant them in different boxes, so now I need to figure out how to pull off some sort of trellis in both boxes. Both plants have two side-by-side squares dedicated in each box, so I am clueless as to how to cheaply and effectively trellis these suckers. We bought a couple of trellis nets, but I'm not what to attach them to. This will not come as a surprise to anyone who's read this blog in the past, but I never had to worry about a trellis before because everything died before getting tall enough to need the trellis. So I'm prancing around in new territory. I assume the bush beans need no support.


I'll admit to being quite guarded when it comes to all of these plants. Since I've had such crappy luck in the past, I don't have a lot of confidence that any of these will grow to the point of producing anything. But I'm going to continue as if I know what I'm doing and let nature take its course. Let's just hope that nature doesn't get lost.

Surprisingly many of the plants have sprouted already and look quite strong. I thought the seedlings would thrive nicely in the slightly cooler October weather, but the heat has been a bit overwhelming. The heat index has been around 100 degrees every day for about two weeks now so my youngest son and I have been watering the garden often and hoping the new sprouts don't get burned in the heat. We're about to set a record here in Central Florida for the most consecutive days in October with temperatures over 90 degrees.


Honestly, Fall in Florida just plain sucks. It's just Summer part II. Let's hope my Summer Part II garden falls into place because I could do with something to boost my gardening confidence.