The Dog Days of Summer

2 weeks ago.

The weatherman says we're in the "dog days" of summer, and he is right.  Almost all of my Romaine lettuce has gone to seed.  It changed over a few hot days last week to claim most of the mature plants.  Of 7 plants that were ready to harvest, or very close to being ready, I could only harvest 2.  The rest had sprouted seed pods which make them way too bitter to eat.

Last Week

If I were growing Romaine seeds I would be pleased.  Not this year.

Here are some pictures of the Romaine seed pods.  First they sprout within the top bunch of leaves, then within a week they spread out like a bush on top of the plant.

Swiss Chard also marches on without going to seed.  The leaves have turned a dark redish-brown and they taste just as bitter as ever.  My 2 plants are making more leaves than I can eat.
As usual, my Kale just keeps growing and producing new leaves.  Even the small plant leaves are ripe for harvest.  I wish I liked eating them by themselves.

After today's harvest.

What I harvested today was enough for salad tonight for my wife and I, and some Kale to give away to some very gracious people I work with.  There will be Romaine plants to harvest the next 3-4 weeks, at least and plenty of Swiss Chard and Kale.
I quit planting new Romaine seeds in the garden due to the heat and daily rains.  My plan now is to finish with these 10 - 11 plants in the ground, then remove the dirt and recycle it onto the ground under my hedge.  That will allow me to move the planting box outdoors.  I have several buckets of newly blended earth and a whole compost bin full of freshly recycled earth to use to refill the garden.  I am building my next 4 foot square planter as two 2 X 4 foot boxes, which would make it possible to actually move those boxes into the garage (with help) if needed due to heavy storms and hurricanes.  This would help my plan to expand (double) my garden space outdoors next year and I am looking at ways to lay that out, artistically.  Fall planting in Florida would begin in early September.
Happy gardening!

Garden Week 11

It may be week 12, or even week 13, but I have lost track and have made some changes without taking enough pictures, so I'll have to catch you up on where things are.

The summer heat and almost daily rains are on us now and have been since I wrote last.  Even the Romaine lettuce bolts straight up with too much heat and water.  These plants overnight grew almost a foot taller than the plants next to them and in doing so, just the stem got longer.  The leaves are the same, just now further apart.  I have been cutting these plants each week for our salads (my wife loves this part) and providing lettuce, Kale and Swiss Chard to my family.  I have continued planting Romaine most weeks, but it is so hot outdoors now I don't want to even be outside.

The garden this week after eating the Romaine, Kale & Swiss Chard

The Swiss Chard now has 2 plants and all the leaves turned dark brown.  I trimmed them back today and pulled the weeds and they should grow more leaves now.   I just cut a few leaves weekly from here and the Kale, so we can enjoy some variety without wasting any plants.

The large Kale leaves

The Kale has the largest leaves I have ever seen on one of these plants and somehow it tolerates the heat just fine.  The second Kale plant is now large enough to produce leaves weekly.  We eat these mixed with the Romaine, my daughter enjoys them by themselves.  She took some leaves home with her during her last visit.
I'll keep with my plan to plant 4 Romaine seeds weekly.  A few have not come up so I'll plant new ones in those squares and update the paperwork.
I know most gardens in the north are in their peak growing time.  Our peak times hit in the winter, so we'll just have to keep going.  My wife wants me to plant celery and I would like to try cucumbers, carrots and tomatoes again.  A container with herbs would be nice (and could be indoors too).  Sweet Potatoes and pole beans are on my list too, so I'll need a larger (outside) garden like the one I planned for this year but did not build.  There is lots of time to plan for that.
Happy gardening!

New Garden Week 8

Tropical Storm Andrea

We just dodged Tropical Storm Andrea, our first for this season.  But we didn't dodge the rain.  It flooded our pool deck again, just not enough to flood the garden.

Flooding from Tropical Storm Andrea

I have harvested 5 Romaine plants so far, including some for the family.  I also harvested Kale, Swiss Chard and Spinach leaves but left the plants with enough leaves to survive.   That is how I had been gardening in the past, just taking enough leaves for a salad every now and then.  My 2013 garden goal is to have plenty of lettuce, harvesting full Romaine plants weekly or when they are ready.
The Spinach has already bloomed in the heat.  I cut off the seed pod, hoping to keep pulling leaves from the plant.  Usually plants get very bitter once they bloom.

Week 8

Last month I planted Kale, Basil & Oregano seeds, but nothing has come up.  The Spinach I planted a while back also didn't sprout.  It leads me to think my garden soil needs to be tested, something I should have done before planting this year.
I did have to pull one sick-looking Romaine plant which looked like it never recovered from the flood damage, and pulled the roots of the plants already cut once the square was empty.  A shovel of new soil from the composter and I'll re-plant this square when ready.

Square 1, starting anew

I planted 4 new Romaine seeds with the plan to continue this practice until I run out of space or the garden gets flooded again.  That should keep us in lettuce through the summer.
Happy Gardening!

New Garden Week 6

My, how things change!

The garden last week...

The garden has grown, greatly.  A few of the plants that have not grown have been replaced with new seeds and we're back in the business of growing food for the family!

...and the garden this week!

The first harvest of 2013 is this weekend!  That lone Romaine seed I planted has survived a full 15 weeks and will be cut, washed and eaten (was mature a month ago at 68 days).  Somehow my math was wrong, but the plants are fine and ready to harvest.  In another week I'll have a couple Romaine plants to harvest, and at some point next month I will have 4 plants ready to harvest.  There will be a 3 week break then between harvests, but I hope that will be the last long break of this year.
Swiss Chard is also growing along with Spinach and Kale.  I'll harvest a few leaves from these weekly when they are ready.

Kale, Swiss Chard, Romaine & Spinach

Oregano will be replanted soon along with Basil.  Both were lost to the yard flooding.
I did see some leaf miners in a weed growing in the soil.  I'll have to watch for them because they move quickly.
The Florida summer heat is on, with highs in the mid-90's and humidity in the upper 80's to low 90's.  It has rained a bit the past few days but none of the frog-strangling-flood-stage-rainfalls like we had last month.
Happy gardening!

New Garden Week 4

A Week Before The Flood and Green

A Couple Days After The Flood and Yellow

Oh no!  The Tuesday before last we had a frog-choking heavy rain where rain water flooded up onto the porch.  The pool was flooded, which usually happens during the heavy spring rains here.  This time though, the water was higher than it has ever been in the past.  The single exception was when the tropical storms a few years ago heavily flooded the state and pushed rain water up over the porch.  I did not have a garden back then.
This new high water mark on the planters is an inch or so higher than the base of my garden, so the garden was flooded with pool water.   Think chlorine, diluted but still active pool water getting into my organic garden and staying there a few hours.

Chlorine + Kale 

In the next day or two, the leaves on the lettuce, Swiss chard and kale turned yellow, then they died and fell off.  Three weeks of new seed plantings were missing.  They either didn't start growing or were washed away by the heavy rain.  After a week, every plant in my garden was mostly yellow.

Remains of Swiss Chard

Two and a half weeks later, I can say the lettuce, at least, is coming back.  I cut the outside yellow leaves off the living plants today and the remaining inside leaves are a healthy green.  I can't say the same for the kale.  It appears to be as dead as it can be.  The Swiss chard, which survives just about anything, looks yellow and is shriveled and very weak, so I'm giving it more time to recover before I plant any more.   The single spinach plant that has come up looks much better now with the yellow leaves trimmed off.
The good news is the pool chlorine contamination should wash away from the organic soil with the daily watering of the plants.  I make sure the whole garden is getting fresh water daily.

So perhaps the organic garden may recover after all.  In a week or so, I'll experiment with planting more seeds and will try to get back to the weekly regimen of planting four romaine seeds.
Happy gardening!

New Garden Week 2

It is now week #2 for my new square garden and the plants are doing well.  There have been no signs of leaf miners or of white flies, both have been problems in the past.  The grubs also seem to be completely gone.
I planted 4 more Romaine lettuce seeds and 2 Kale seeds today.  The Romaine plants are planted in the top (North) edge of the garden, 2 per side.  2 Kale seeds have been planted just below the Spinach plants.  I thinned out the Romaine plants from 2 weeks ago and pulled the larger weeds.  The weeds are easy to spot and pull from the soft soil.  I will add more soil to the top of the garden in an effort to level it to prevent pooling from rain storms.
I'm also changing how I photograph the garden and will consistently use a North orientation for the photos instead of shooting from the West side like I have in the past.  That should simplify the garden layout for all of us.  Annotating the photos, like above (in too small print), will improve the look and feel of the blog, and hopefully improve communication between us.  I hope to find free software with larger sized fonts than what I currently have available to me.
Due to a change in my work schedule, I will be posting here twice monthly instead of weekly.  If that is an issue for you, please let me know in the comments.  Thank you for reading.
Happy gardening!

New Garden Week 1

The first weeks of April in the new garden have passed, and the plants are still alive!  Many of the new seed plantings are growing, with some that need to be thinned and new seeds planted.

With North to the left side of the photo, I have started planting in the center two rows of the garden.

Sunday morning as the rain threatened, I thinned the Romaine, Swiss Chard and Basil.  Then I planted 2 more Spinach seeds and 4 more Romaine seeds.
My garden is laid out like this:
In the center two rows, left, then right...

• Romaine plants transplanted from 2/23 and 3/25
• Kale plant transplanted on 2/23, with new Basil, Oregano and Spinach seeds on 4/12
• 4 Romaine plants transplanted from 3/25
• 2 Swiss Chard seeds planted 4/12, and 2 Spinach seeds on 4/21
• 4 Romaine seeds planted 4/12
• Open
• 4 Romaine seeds planted 4/21
• Open

The idea is to grow the older plants on the North and West sides of the garden with the younger plants to the South and East sides so there won't be any serious shading of the younger plants.

Kale top left with Basil above it, Spinach and Oregano to the right side.

If everything keeps growing, I'll continue planting 2 to 4 Romaine seeds weekly.  I still have 10 open garden grids available, so that will give me 14 full grids of Romaine plants (hopefully 56 full heads of lettuce) and more than enough Spinach leaves for salads with some Kale and Swiss Chard leaves to add spice to salads during the week.  The Spinach won't keep through the heat as it died out the last time I tried this.  The Romaine and Swiss Chard seemed to survive anything.
The Oregano and Basil should provide enough leaves to freeze or dry for seasoning, and may survive past the Florida fall.  

Romaine at the top left with newer Romaine crops to the right.  Even newer seeds have been planted to the right of the photograph.

The Parris Island Cos Romaine I am growing should take about 68 days to mature for harvest.  These heirloom plants should reach between 10" and 12" high and have dark green leaves.
The expected harvesting dates for the crop so far would be around May 3, June 1, June 19 and July 1.  Since freshly grown lettuce keeps longer in the refrigerator than store-bought produce does, this potentially could supply us with plenty of table lettuce through the first week of September.  That's provided the crop survives the heat and the tropical storms of summer.
I'll continue to write a weekly summary with plant photos.

Happy Gardening!

Garden Started

I finally put aside some other items and started my garden.

My garden is finally started!

For new plants, I planted the seeds directly in the garden instead of first starting them in the nursery.  I have 8 Romaine lettuce plants, the first one in my nursery was potted on 2/23/13, the rest on 3/25/15.  4 more were directly planted in the garden as seeds on 4/12/13.

The romaine.

My kale plant was potted in the nursery on 2/23/13.  I planted seeds for oregano, basil, spinach and Swiss chard on 4/12/13.
I'll plant 2 to 4 more lettuce seeds each week.  My goal is to harvest 2 full lettuce heads weekly, and pull some leaves from the chard and spinach for my salads.  The herbs I'll use as needed.  They took over the garden in the past, so one plant of each will be more than enough.
While I'm starting late this year, I think my lettuce will be fine.
On 4/13/13 all of the plantings were still alive, none were eaten or withered.  I watered the garden and said a prayer for the seeds.
Now we'll watch.
Happy gardening!

Plans Change

The Garden Has Been Under Cover Since Last Summer.

Well, plans change.  We will be leaving the micro-garden under the screen enclosure for now, and will plant in it soon!  This is the least expensive option and it is the easiest way to continue for now.  It won't be long until it gets too hot to grow most garden plants in Florida anyway.

Needs More Dirt!  And A Grid.

I have started more lettuce and spinach in the nursery and once it sprouts will begin to plant them in the garden.  The same goes for my herbs, four of each are planted and hopefully we'll have some basil and oregano sprouting in the next 10 days.  My kale and romaine lettuce plants are ready for planting!
My brother-in-law garden partner has been quite busy lately, and I expect he may help me with the garden project again soon.

Garden With 12" Grid.  My Shadow At The Left.

In the meantime, I'm planting seeds and waiting for all the grubs in the garden to surface so I can eradicate them before they eat my plants.  I killed two grubs yesterday.  One fairly clean way to get rid of the grubs is to pour some beer up to the rim of a small cup, buried so the cup rim is at the surface of the garden.  The slugs cannot help themselves and will simply drown in the beer cup.  So there's your green gardening tip for the week.
Happy Gardening!

Seeds On The Left In The Vermiculite, Baby Plants On The Right In The Soil

Online Organic Seeds

Just type in "Organic Seeds" into Google search, and you will be rewarded with pages of options.  Online there is a treasure trove of organic seeds, sprouts, and support.  I even found a few organic seed companies here in Florida to try.

Organic seeds used in my garden...spinach, oregano and  basil.

Organic kale and Swiss chard.

Organic romaine lettuce.

Remember, to sell seeds as "Certified Organic", the seeds must be grown and kept in a strict organic nature, with tons of US Government paperwork to prove it.  These seeds would be considered safe and proven to be chemical-free.  The paperwork must be updated annually, complete with inspections.  There is much more USDA Organic information here.  Though a bit of a long read, I encourage you to digest some of this document to gain a better understanding about organic foods and how they are grown.
Many smaller seed sellers sell organically grown seeds, but without the organic certification process.  In these cases, you would trust them to provide a safe and healthy seed, as many companies do today.  Mother Earth News reports that you can legally sell up to $5000 of seeds annually but you cannot call it "organic" or put the organic seal on it.  These companies still have to follow the same USDA organic growing rules and are subject to "surveillance monitoring".
Biodynamics are more of a "way of life", for managing a total ecosytem of the farm.  There is much more about this spiritual-ethical-ecological approach online here.  You could consider seeds grown this way to be excellent also, though maybe not 100% organic.
Remember that Heirloom seeds are proven to have more vitamins and minerals in them than commercial vegetable seeds because they have not been altered.  My kale is heirloom.
Here are a few of the organic seed web sites to check out:
Mother Earth News story on Organic Seed production.
High Mowing Organic Seeds.
Seeds of Change.
Bountiful Gardens.
Burpee Organic Gardening.
And stores in Florida:
Eden Organic Nursery Services in Hallandale.
Florida Backyard Vegetable Gardener in Spring Hill.
Just Fruit and Exotics in Crawfordville.
Happy Gardening!

Weeks one and two

Square Foot Garden ready to be moved outside

So far I have planted seeds for the second week in my nursery and plan for the garden to be placed in the yard this weekend.   I'll use cinder blocks to support the garden frame and will purchase the chicken wire and support frames next week.

The nursery is my wife's name for the used metal shelf that I pulled from the trash and re-purposed to hold sprays, trays and tools on the pool deck.  It makes keeping my gardening tools together easy and gives me a surface to plant and mix on without messing up the pool deck dinner table.

The nursery

The one rule I am keeping for my garden is that everything must be organic.  This year is my first for having all organic seeds.  Any fertilizers or bug sprays used are already organic.  The soil mix is all organic and has been since I started in 2010.  Organic seeds are now more readily available, with several heirloom varieties.  Online, the amount of organic seed types for vegetables, flowers and herbs is enormous.  We'll talk more about about organic seeds in another post.

Happy gardening!

Gardening, oh my!

My Square Foot Garden on the pool deck.

I got into home-based organic micro-gardening in 2010, having grown up with large farming gardens in Kentucky.  I wanted to try Square Foot Gardening, so I bought the book, built my garden and mixed the organic soil.  I setup the garden on our pool deck in an effort to avoid the bugs and some other perils of central Florida, but spent way too much effort to manually pollenate the plants.  I really like the Square Foot Garden method, and plan to continue using it until I can learn a better way to grow food. The amount of work is much less than traditional row gardening usually takes, and you can plant a garden for the available free time you have.  You may check out the SFG website here.

Square Foot Gardening book

We mostly grew lettuce, spinach, kale and Swiss chard very well, plants which didn't need much help to get started.  I tried growing several varieties of tomato with no luck at all; broccoli, summer and winter squash, and bell pepper all failed horribly; oregano and basil actually did so well they took over; carrots tasted great but looked deranged and my beans never sprouted.  So much for my green thumb.
In 2013, I am planting the winter garden with my brother-in-law Julian, who can grow just about anything and who now lives close by.  This will be a little late to plant for the Florida season, but I hope to grow some salad greens before it gets too hot.  I'm sticking to growing two plantings of romaine lettuce weekly with one spinach and kale plant for the whole season.  One square will be planted with herbs, starting with one basil and oregano plant each.  My goal is to harvest two full heads of lettuce weekly and pull leaves from my other plants as needed.

Planting seed planner with dates

I think Julian is planning for growing lettuce also.  We each will have 8 squares of the garden to work with to start.  If this works out, we'll build more gardens and work from there in the fall.  I do have a full compost barrel of fresh soil and several five-gallon buckets of pre-mixed soil ready to work with, plus the good soil in the current garden and numerous empty containers of various sizes.
I started growing my seeds in the nursery on 2/9/13, and if they survive the latest cold snap, I'll be ready to transplant once we get the garden moved outdoors.

Seeds started in my nursery

The plan is to setup the garden outside, in our back yard.  We will remove the grass from a 4 foot square area, lay down landscaping cloth and cover that with mulch.  The garden frame will sit above the ground on bricks.  It has a plywood bottom to hold the soil inside.  This will keep it above the water when it rains.
Julian and I will build a removable, wood framed, chicken-wire screen shelter.  This shelter will be two feet high by four feet square, and is designed to protect the plants from birds, squirrels and other critters.  Plans for this screen shelter are in the Square Foot Gardening book.  The screen will fit securely on top of the garden and will be easy to remove.  We will not mount the homemade trellis since we are not growing anything that needs it this winter.
Please join me for weekly Family Micro-Gardening posts.
Happy Gardening!