Month: May 2015

The best part of gardening… when you start to see the things you’ve planted start to actually grow and you know eating time is near! This year we’ve got several different peppers and tomatoes, already starting to show their pretty faces. The early girl tomato, affectionately known as the late girl here since it’s been the last tomato to finally show any tomatoes, finally has a juicy one growing:

Meanwhile, our old standby, the heat resistant tomato plant, has so many growing that I believe we’ll be making more than just salsa this year! Can’t wait to try some other recipes, like our own spaghetti sauce perhaps….

And oh, the peppers… we’ve got jalapeno peppers growing like crazy and then one lone banana pepper (really hoping we get more than one banana pepper out of that plant!).

Next week, I’ll show some of the progress we’ve had with the blueberries and the Florida Everglades tomatoes we’ve tried out this year. Every day with the garden is like an adventure, as I notice something new. God really creates miracles with his plant kingdom and gardening reminds me of just how awesome He is!

Meanwhile,  just thinking about all of this puts me in the mood for some good, cozy mysteries! I’ve found a couple new to me authors who write about gardening, spices, and even one about an organic farm that just fit my mood perfectly during gardening season. With COYER about to start, perhaps I’ll find some more authors to give a try!

So all my talk about gardening and there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned- it’s all in my backyard, while the front yard has been a sad mess. Why, you ask? Well, we have a helpful neighbor, a nice elderly man who will rake our leaves from our 2 huge oak trees in the front yard. He’ll pick up twigs and generally keep things kept up just because he enjoys getting the exercise. Unfortunately, we have a big disagreement with him on the issue of grass. He’s a fan of the St. Augustine grass, whereas we just want anything green at all in the front yard! Unfortunately, this means that in the guise of helpfulness, he pulled up all the other grass we had in several sections leaving us with dirt. I’m now happy to report that we’ve had a couple other plants that seem to be thriving so perhaps we can go a different route.

Hopefully, like my caladiums that are gradually growing in number in the front yard, I can gradually increase these other pretty plants and eventually have a pretty front yard again. If the two pictured plants survive till next year, then I’m going to be loading up the yard with them, just like I’ve been increasing the number of caladiums in the front yard.

As for my gardens in the backyard, I’ll have to get pictures for next week as I’ve got peppers and tomatoes growing! So excited! Also learned that plants can get sunburned as I have two wee plants, a pepper and a tomato plant, that are turning this odd white color that googling indicates is a sunburn. Who knew??

Gardening has begun and once we started, we couldn’t hold to our determination to stick to what worked for us last year. We’ve now added two new trees to the backyard, a guava tree and a banana tree.

I’m excited, particularly watching the banana plant as she shoots those leaves up in the air and then flaps them out quite dramatically. Each day is a new pose and it’s beautiful to watch her grow (and yes, my banana plant is a female. My garden, my rules!).

The guava tree is growing taller, bit by bit, but far less dramatically. I’m looking forward to seeing what the guava looks like as more days pass.

Meanwhile, our lemon tree from last year continues to flourish. I’m also experimenting with my usual tomatoes but also some Florida Everglades tomatoes that supposedly are perennial. So far, my peppers are flowering but only a few actual peppers growing. However, it’s early still as last year we were producing food till well into the summer months!