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!