Winding Down for Summer

What a season it has been!  While I am thankful for all the harvests that my hard work has generated, man am I ever going to be thankful for the time I will have to relax before the Fall season gets underway.  It's a quandary though.  I'll miss the harvests and watching everything grow, but will not miss the constant battle with bugs and critters and trying to keep the plants all reigned in.  I will not miss seeing soft ties and twine for a few months!


I learned so much this past season.  It's truly been a yummy educational venture.  Not only have I been learning in the garden, but in the kitchen as well.  I have never lied to myself or anyone else, saying "Oh sure, I can cook."  But I'm happy to say that that statement is no longer true!  I decided this past year that I would learn how to cook and I've been making huge strides in that area.  Guess gardening and cooking really do go hand in hand.  How could you possibly put all that time, love, sweat, and blood (think mosquitoes and mishaps - and meal too I suppose) into growing your own food and not do something amazing with it after you gain that hard earned harvest?


As usual, it's been a few months since my last blog due to the demands of school.  I'm very proud to report that I'm doing really well there.  I only have 6 courses left until I graduate with both of my Bachelor degrees.  And I'm super excited that after the most recent classes finished, my grades have come up enough to earn the magna cum laude designation.  As long as I can hold the 3.75 gpa over the next 6 courses, the honors designation will appear on both of my diplomas! Woo hoo!!  Very exciting and a visible nod to all the hours, hard work, and occasional anguish that has brought me to this point.  Enough about that... onto the garden!


I know I said I was going to cut down all the plants in the last blog, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  Even though some were showing blight symptoms, they were still throwing up blooms and sending off new growth.  So I just cut a lot of them back some and waited to see what happened.  I did end up cutting down the BHN640 and the First Prize Hybrid tomato pants.  They were looking pretty sad and I had other plants that could benefit more from their space.  I was able to get a few more harvests out of the plants I did keep and finally made the decision yesterday to cut down mostly everything out in the big plot.


So here are some overall progression shots of the garden from the last blog up to yesterday's take down.



3/12/12:  Here's the garden with the pole beans/trellis, BHN640 and First Prize removed









From the other end - Before the cherry tomato plant was cut back.  That really needed to happen since it was showing some serious blight symptoms.

And after the cherry tomato cutback (which made the eggplant VERY happy)

The sad remains - this was heart breaking, but needed to be done.  


I am hoping that I can get some more harvests before the dead heat of Summer comes on. 
Supposedly this plant is a heat lover, so we will see.  As of this week, I have had some new blooms, but it appears that the blight has stuck with the plant.  I am not sure if the other plants were affecting this plant, so that helped make my decision to cut the rest down. 




Fingers crossed that will help this plant get healthy and continue producing for us.  My mom was forced to buy cherry tomatoes from the store and she ended up tossing them out saying that they made her want to vomit.  She has admittedly become quite spoiled by my little cherry tomatoes and has told me we'll grow a plant inside if we have to!







5/4/12: And here is the garden overview current day, but before the cutback.  It seriously looked like someone had shot up my garden with a .22 there were so many chewed up leaves, and then they took a flame thrower to it since the blight appeared to really burn up a lot of the tomato vines. 

And here we are after the massive cut back.  I completely cut down all of the tomato plants except the cherry tomato.  I also removed the older broccoli plants and the lima beans that were acting as an effective aphid trap crop.  I had a few cauliflower plants that did not seem to be going anywhere, just chewed up too much, so I removed those as well.  The only things remaining in the ground in the plot now are the cherry tomato, eggplant, a single broccoli plant, and three cauliflower plants - not sure if they will do anything or not. 

You'll notice a few 5 gallon buckets placed in the plot.  I decided that I did not want to plant anything else in the plot over the Summer other than stuff that will actually help the soil, not deplete it further.  So I went ahead and am experimenting with growing watermelon and cantaloupe in the buckets.  

I placed them in the garden so that they can get the benefit of a regular watering cycle from the soaker hoses I wound up into the buckets.  This should help when it comes time to harvest them as well (if I get that far with the experiment) since you are supposed to cut the water going to the melons and lopes about a week before you are ready to harvest in order to increase the sweetness of the fruit.  I was unable to do this last season since they were planted directly in the plot and while we had very good tasting fruit, I had this sneaking suspicion that it could have been much sweeter had I been able to regulate the water uptake.  You can see how I wound the soaker hose up into the buckets.  Even once the vines start trailing out I should be able to just slip the hose out from under them and down to the ground.

Sugar Baby and Crimson Sweet Watermelons

Cantaloupe

5/4/12 - I helped pollinate the first of the female flowers to pop up on the crimson sweet watermelon.

5/6/12 - I rearranged them today and laid out the weed fabric for them to vine out onto.  I am going to monitor the heat levels in the buckets.  I may end up digging down into the plot and sinking the buckets down into the ground in order to cut down on the heat accumulation in the bucket. I'll need to pick up some more weed fabric too.  I know they will grow quick and far!  

I arranged them on this end of the plot this season since the eggplant and the beastly cherry tomato plant are located in the last spot they were in.  I am also hoping that I will not need to be their pollinator.  The vines will now be located right next to the salvia we planted in the ground, which the flying insects LOVE!  We saw an adorable baby honey bee out there today.

 

Not so sure if the soaker hoses will work, but I have high hopes.  If not I'll just need to hand water.

Oh that reminds me!  We ended up having to replace the soaker hoses we originally put in place in August 2011.  We had picked up the rubbery material ones and they ended up just disintegrating.  So we now have a nylon style that cost a slight bit more, but comes with a lifetime guarantee that they will last.  So the higher cost up front should pay off in the long run - not replacing the rubber ones regularly and in the time saved unwinding 75' of soaker hose from the plants and winding new hose in.  My mom took on that chore since I was crazy busy with school at that point, so I can't comment exactly on how much of a pain that was.  Taking in her drenched, dirty, scratched up appearance after she completed the hose swap, I have to say it looked like an epic battle had taken place!

I am kicking myself for not taking better records during April, but the end of semester sucked up a lot of my time and something had to give.  Unfortunately it turned out to be the hand written journal I was keeping.  So I don't have final harvest counts for this season and I'm seriously bummed about not having that data!

So that's a brief overview of what's been doin here in Southwest Florida.  Let's get into some specifics.  

ON THE OUTSIDE

Solar Fire Tomato:

3/12/12 - I cut this plant back once it started to show signs of blight.  I was able to harvest a few more tomatoes, before it succumbed to blight again shortly after.  I am finding that once blight sets in on one of the plants, you have to be quick about getting those bits out of the garden because it will spread quickly to the rest of the plant and to other plants in the vicinity.

The birds also had a field day with this one.  Once I removed the beans and trellis from the end of the plot, it seemed like it was an open invitation for them to come in and feast.  Next season I think I will be hanging some spent compact discs from the bars to ward them off, maybe even a set or two of wind chimes.  I had not had any problems with any critters attacking the plants up until about March, so I don't know if they got all frisky with Spring coming on or what.  I will be better prepared for them next season!

First Prize Hybrid Tomato:

3/12/12 - This plant suffered the worst from the blight and I tried to cut it back, but the poor thing looked like a skeleton and once the majority of leaves had been removed, the tomatoes that were on the plant ended up getting sun scald and didn't make it to an edible harvest.  So this plant was one of the first to be cut completely down.  

I did not pull the plants because I have a feeling that in the tight quarters of my plot the roots of all the plants have probably commingled.  So I just cut the plants down to the soil line and let the roots be.  Eventually all of the roots will die off and just get tilled back into the soil when I am ready to redo the plot this summer. 

Ball's Beefsteak Tomato:

3/12/12 - This plant did not succumb to blight as badly as the rest of the tomato plants did; however, the plant did attract some NASTY critters that were feasting on the fruit and rotting it.  I was able to harvest about a 1/4 of the fruit on the plant.  The bugs got to the rest.  

I am going to post some progression pics of these nasty things, so if anyone knows what they are, shout it out so I can look them up and figure out 1 - are they going to bite me and 2 - how to get rid of them organically.

 





Here are the pics of the nasty bug.  This is from the initial discovery on 4/8/12.











 




And here they are on 4/9/12.  They seemed to do the colony thing, sticking together on a particular fruit.














 

They would get agitated if I went too close to them and started to break up.  One of them got as close to me as it could without leaving the fruit and excreted some sort of liquid from its butt area - yeah ewwww gross.  You can see on close inspection of the pic where they have been puncturing the fruit and sucking from it :(






And here they are on 4/22/12 very obviously morphing into something else altogether.  They got much larger in size, too.

 




And here is what they end up doing to my fruit!  This is the tomato that I first saw them hanging out on on 4/9/12.

But they obviously did take off and hit up some other fruit nearby.

Well after my mom and I saw this, we decided they needed to be disposed of and quick!  So we grabbed our latest addition to the organic gardening tool box - duct tape lol

We managed to get most of them, but unfortunately two got away.  I know this because I ran across them in the garden yesterday and now they are predominantly black and have wings and flew right at me!!!  The duct tape was not nearly as effective on them at this late stage.  And they sadly must have reproduced at some point because I saw three more that were at a younger stage.  I managed to kill two of them with the duct tape of course, but the third got away, the nasty bugger.  I just hope with most of the tomato plants gone from the garden they will move off to somewhere else!

Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato:

So I mostly gave an update on the cherry tomato plant at the opening of the blog.  I will just post some pictures from yesterday, 5/4/12, to get us caught up to current.  We have some baby tomatoes on and forming now so we should be harvesting again soon!

My mom and I went out today, 5/6/12, and decided it was the best time to remove the cage.  We know the cage will be a hindrance as the plant gets back to the beastly size it had been before.  Since the vines were long enough and thick enough to withstand the soft ties we went ahead and started the initial supports that we have decided work best in our plot.  So here are some pics of the cherry tomato plant today after we removed the cage and strung up the vines for support.

 


Beefmaster Tomato:
 
3/12/12 - This plant suffered some blight, but after pruning I was able to get quite a few more harvests.  The nasty bugs pictured on the Ball's Beefsteak portion decided to move over to this plant after I cut that one down.  So I made the executive decision to just pull out all of the tomato plants.  The birds were getting to this plant as well, since it was large enough to crest over the top of the arbor.  They could just perch up on the arbor and have a nice little feast on my maters!





 

Super Beefsteak Tomato:

3/12/12 - This plant was hit hard by the blight, but powered through after some pruning and offered up some more of the big beauties it had become famous for.  These tomatoes were excellent for use in sauce and soup.  One tomato also produced a large glass of tomato juice, or bloody mary :)






BHN640 Tomato:

I really ended up enjoying this plant, much to my surprise.  Once blight set in though it was done.  The determinate varieties definitely succumbed harder to the blight and were not really able to bounce back the way the indeterminate varieties were.  Probably due to their compact size and sparse foliage.

After the cutback on 3/12/12 it was a pitiful skeleton plant and suffered some sun scalded fruit.  Once blight set in I was unable to get any more harvests from this plant.  Well I may have been able to if the darn birds had not got to my fruit first!  The broccoli you see encroaching in this pic was very happy once the plant was removed.  I opted to take this one out much earlier than any of the rest of the plants.  It was the second one to come out of the plot.




Eggplant:
3/12/12 - Last time I left off the eggplant had started to bloom, but I was not getting any fruit.  Well the temps just were not right for it.  As soon as the daytime temps got above 80 on a regular basis and the night time temps stayed above 70 on a regular basis, this plant has been a non-stop producer.  I went out there on a tour of the garden one day and 6 flowers had developed into baby fruit all at once!  I ended up having to cut the rest of the blooms off of the plant.  I did this following the advice of several Florida gardening texts that said that if you allowed the plant to set any more than 4 to 6 fruit then the fruit that developed would be on the bitter side and under developed.  Since I did not wish to chance it and 6 eggplant at a time are more than enough for my family, I cut the rest of the blooms and have been keeping the fruits to those minimums.  

I currently have 3 set out there and just harvested three last week.  I've been averaging a 3 per week harvest and I am ecstatic over the taste of the finished product.  It has seriously been worth the wait.

Imagine my surprise after MONTHS of waiting when I walked out on 3/24/12 and found all of these.  They are so adorable!

They grow really quick once they set.  Here are the same fruit 3 days later on 3/27/12.

And here is the first eggplant harvested on 4/8/12.

And here is the plant today on 5/5/12 absolutely thriving.

The next fruit coming up as of today

I also discovered my first lady bug to my garden today on the eggplant!  YAY

 

Cauliflower: 

I have not been able to harvest any of these yet, but I still have my fingers crossed since the plants are so vigorous.  They just need to produce something!  My mom and I actually started to eye the leaves today, wondering what they would taste like braised and cooked up with some oil and spices.


They have taken some serious chewing though.  Some so much so that when one of them finally did produce a head I had no leaves to wrap around it to blanch it!  So I let that one go to seed and the bees LOVED it.


Shots taken on 3/12/12.  There are three different planting cycles shown here, with the youngest plants shown first.  The very first pic is actually of a baby cauliflower plant and a baby broccoli plant with a much more mature cauliflower plant behind those.

  

 

The two smaller plants were just totally eaten up by whatever is feasting on them, so I opted to pull those out.  The remaining three plants are massive now and can clearly be seen in the current day garden photos posted at the start of the blog.

5/4/12 - I have hopes that these will produce a head of cauliflower though.  They seem to be doing the self-blanching thing where the leaves will grow similar to a cabbage and wrap around the head and keep it from getting exposed to the sun.  

If a cauliflower head is left open to the sun it will actually be green.  If you have a cauliflower head that is not a self-blanching variety, then you will need to take the leaves and pull them up, together and around the head and secure with a rubber band about two weeks before harvest.  By doing that, you remove the sun exposure from the head and it blanches - turns white.

Broccoli: 

Here are the broccoli plants on 3/12/12.  I had just harvested the one head from the plant featured here.  I let it continue to grow after this so I could harvest the little side shoots.

I had already harvested the main head from this plant and allowed it to grow so I could harvest all of the little side shoots that continued to grow.  They are equally as tasty and in my opinion, better than the main head since they grow in bite size pieces.  You only need the one cut off the plant, a quick wash and ready for consumption, unlike the larger head that requires additional cutting after the initial harvest.

This plant was much happier after I removed the BHN640 tomato plant and the bean trellis.  The plant was able to stretch out more and received a lot more direct sun.  I was able to harvest a decent sized head, but I only harvested a few side shoots.  My guess would be that the decrease in side shoot harvests from what I had normally reaped from the other plants resulted from the reduced size of the stalk since this plant received less direct sun from gestation than the others had.

5/4/12 - I have one broccoli plant left out in the garden now.  I took the rest out in preparation for Summer. The main head should be ready to harvest in about a week. 

In the Blocks:

The onions were doing well, but once it got much hotter - and my dog rooted around in them looking for the blood meal ferts - they dropped off some.  Still proud of what I managed to grow and will do this again next season, just earlier since growing from seed, as opposed to using root starts, it took forever!  I also will not plant more than one per block.  I did not think these were going to bulb so I planted several per block figuring I'd just use the green parts as herbs.  But then they bulbed and I just went with it.

All of the herbs are doing well with the exception of the oregano.  The oregano seems to want space and some shade, since it is doing REALLY well in the herb pot.  I ended up having to pull the dill out because it actually overwhelmed the block that it was in.  If I decide to plant Dill again, I will definitely reduce the amount of starts I put in a single block.

The basil seems to be doing really well.  Need to plant MUCH more.

 

 






Now that the parsley has come out from under the massive broccoli leaves that used to shade it, I anticipate it really taking off and growing a lot more.










The oregano in the blocks on 3/12/12 posted below.  It has since died.  It took a really hard hit with the first temps below freezing we had over winter and it never really bounced back after that. Luckily I had and still have PLENTY in the big pot inside the pool cage.  More on that pot later.

Avocados:

These guys seem to be doing well.  They had a very rough season with the winds and rain.  But we have new growth and a lot less brown leaves.  So fingers crossed they continue to grow.

Bushes:

The bushes we planted in the Fall were growing and finally bloomed.  We were so excited to see the fire bush and the star jasmine bloom, because they were so beautiful and the bees/butterflies loved them... and then True Green showed up to fertilize the palm trees and they also decided to throw in some bonus fertilizer on the bushes and BURNED THEM UP GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  As if I needed further proof of why I should go organic.  My fertilizers don't burn darn it!


Here they were just before they fully bloomed.  I did not get a pic in bloom because I thought they'd just keep on blooming and I'd get a pic on my next round of garden pics. Alas that did not happen since True Green showed up the very next day :(  I didn't bother taking a pic of the burnt up plants because it is just too depressing.

Coconuts!

We have not had coconuts in a few years.  Ever since the hard frost about three years back, followed by the many weeks of below freezing weather two years back, the trees stopped producing coconuts.  Well we finally got coconuts this year and decided to cut down some greenies and put the coconut water to use.  Very good!  Going to let the rest mature on the trees into the hard nuts that have more meat.  Should be another few months until we can harvest those, but we have grand plans for macaroons and toasted coconut.  I shot a video of us opening the first coconuts.  It was that funny.  Thank goodness for great people who post "how to" videos on YouTube for us to watch and learn from!

So that's all that is going on in the main plot and in the yard.  Now on to the bins in the pool cage!

ON THE INSIDE

 


Bush Beans:
3/12/12 - These Bush Beans did well until the white flies moved in.  I was able to get a handful of beans before the flies sucked the life out of the plants.  I have not given up and decided to give it another go, which you will see further below.










 


English Peas:
The english peas did well until the heat set in.  I was able to harvest a bunch and they were SO good.  Wish we had some cooler weather to be able to grow more of these.  I had maybe a month while they thrived.

Corn:

The corn has been a wonderful experience.  I have been able to harvest a bunch of ears.  Once I figured out how the fertilizer cycle needed to go and how to hand pollinate the silks I was able to get full ears and they were so sweet!  Adding a second bin helped to have stalks at several different points of the life cycle that ensured I would have pollen when the ears developed the silks.  I would have a pot of water boiling as I went outside to cut off the ears.  If you can harvest and cook them quick like that then they are super sweet!  Here are some of the pics taken since 3/12/12.

The dreaded corn ear worm tried to get into a few of the ears, but I was vigilant and caught them before they destroyed the ears.

 



And here's the next up and coming round on 5/5/12.  Sadly this is probably the last crop for the season.  It's going to get too hot for them here soon.










More herbs in the cage...

I decided to try to get a little fancy and put together this pot.  It's basil and cilantro.  It did well, but the cilantro has gotten way out of control.  Think I need to pull that and let the basil have the pot, since it is very happy as well.  I think the cilantro will do better in the blocks.

 



5/5/12 - Here is the big herb pot.  I have one lonely basil plant in there and the oregano has happily taken over the rest!

 



5/5/12 - Some garlic chives doing wonderfully.  Can you say cha cha chia!

Southern Peas & Bush Beans Take 2 or is it 3 now!

I've decided to give the Southern peas and bush beans another shot.  The darn aphids and white flies have been my nemesis when it comes to legumes.


 


Here they are on 4/3/12, shortly after planting.  I have 12 southern pea plants on the trellis side and 12 bush beans on the other side.

 






4/14/12 and they are going strong










4/22/12 and we needed to figure out how to get the beans/peas away from the dog.  She has a real liking for melon, pea, bean, and cucumber leaves and will strip a plant quicker than any worm or leaf hopper out there!  So here is what we devised.  Gotta love all the re-purposing of the old lattice right?

5/5/12 and I have just been swamped with aphids who started to spread their nasty black sooty mold.  I actually tried blowing them off with the condensed air cans you use on keyboards onto a sticky fly trap.  That worked for the adults, but not so much with the eggs.  

Then I actually wrapped tape around my fingers and tried to get the eggs off doing a similar action to the way you would try to get lint off of your clothes.  That sort of worked but the tape wasn't strong enough.  

But that gave us a good idea.  My mom and I then sat down and busted out the q-tips.  We swabbed the q-tips in the sticky stuff on the flytraps and then used the q-tips to hand pick (or I guess you could say hand stick) the aphids and eggs off the plants as best we could.  Thankfully our inadvertent smearing of the sticky stuff onto the plant didn't hurt it.  The plants actually started to really kick in to grow mode after we did this.  So we knew we were on the path to a good solution.  And it really seemed to work, but the damn things came back the next week!  So I sat down and did it again.  Problem was that the aphids were now spreading disease and the plants, while no longer stunted and curled, were starting to develop the sooty mold issues on the stems.  

So, I finally decided that the plants would be lost if I didn't do something drastic.  I busted out the neem oil and risked possibly burning the plants in the hot Florida sun.  But it seems to have worked.  There are a lot of dead bodies out there and the plants did not burn.  I have to spray again next week.  But here's to hoping that the neem oil works.  Side benefit - it seems that the neem has also taken care of the white flies!  If this stuff ends up working, I am going to talk my mom into planting a neem tree!

Pole Beans:
I also started more pole beans.  I am seriously missing those since we pulled them out of the main plot.  I am hoping that this will work.  Definite experiment!

 




4/14/12 and they are growing up quick!













 


4/22/12 and these guys needed more trellis.  My mom designed this beauty.  If it works we will be renting it out for local parades :)  We affectionately call it Bo Peep now.

 



5/5/12 and the bo peep arbor is kinda working out. She's definitely listing a bit.

Strawberries: 

We also decided on a whim to pick up some more strawberry plants.  Darn shopping display at the local big box store sucked us in.  One of these years I'll get up to the Plant City Strawberry Festival and get some serious plants for the house.  But for now, these will get us by.  These are the mounding type plants so we went with a large basin, shallow pot.  They have been coming along nicely, probably tripled in size, since we first brought them home.  They seem to be trying to bloom, but I'm not expecting any actual berries until the Fall.

CONCLUSION

It's definitely winding down around here.  I'm happy and sad.  We had some great harvests for sure.  In fact this was the final tomato harvest.














I learned some stuff about herbs.  You can actually dice them up and freeze them in water in ice cube trays and then thaw them as needed.  Pretty cool trick.


 


But now my season is pretty much over and I have to rely on the farmer's market.  Luckily I can get some really good stuff from them!

While the season for veggie harvests in the big plot may be winding down, I still have a bit of work to do out there.  I want to rejuvenate my soil over the Summer in preparation for the Fall season.  So here is what I plan to do:


1. Mix up some new soil, because I used up my stock!  I will follow the same exact mix that I used when creating the initial soil mix for the plot since it has worked out so well.


2. I will be pulling up the grass about a foot out from the cinder blocks all the way around the plot.  I will put pine straw down in an effort to reduce weed growth.  

Then in that spot I plan to plant some flowers.  The salvia I planted in the ground this past season has thrived and really drawn in some pollinators.  So I want to capitalize on that.  The salvia ended up going in the ground because the flowers in pots placed sporadically around the plot did help bring in the pollinators, but they were time consuming to keep up with hand watering.  They also quickly outgrew their pots.  Considering my hectic school schedule, I needed to devise a lower maintenance plan and I think this is it.

Right now I am thinking of planting several types of nasturtiums to help ward off white flies.  I am also thinking of more salvia (since that experiment worked out so well).  And there are several types of flowers that are supposed to ward off mosquitoes, so a few of those might be nice as well.  I have my nasturtium seeds and need to get those started indoors here soon.

3. I will need to put the shade cloth back up soon.  The sun is starting to get intense and temps have been steadily creeping into the upper 80s and low 90s for a few weeks now.

4. I'm going to have to pull the plants that are left in the ground in the big plot at some point.  I'm thinking that I will give the cauliflower and broccoli that are left out there until the end of May.  I will leave the eggplant and cherry tomato plants in until the end of June.  I will pull these out sooner if they start to deteriorate.


5.  As the plants get pulled, I am going to replace them with a cover crop.  I plan to use marigolds and legumes.  The marigolds should help to eliminate some of the pest problems that might be occurring below the soil line.  The legumes will help to feed nitrogen back into the soil that has been depleted.  That should take care of rejuvenating the old soil.  


6.   I will let the cover crop grow until about mid-July and then I will actually till those under and allow the plants themselves to also help rejuvenate the soil.


7.  I will start my new tomato plants and whatever else I plan to start from seed that needs 6-8 weeks of indoor growing time somewhere around the beginning or mid-July.  Haven't decided on exacts as of yet.


8.  Come the start of August, I will till the whole plot again and get a feel for where the level of the soil will be.  I want to have at least 14" of soil out there.  So I will add a new batch of my soil mix to the plot until I reach the desired level.


9.  I plan to do a soil solarization of the plot for the month of August through to the point in September when the plants I have grown indoors need to get out in the plot.


10. Start all over again in the Fall!

I also plan to do a seed starting blog post in the next few days.  I look back at my initial blogs now and I can't believe the amount of troubles that I had considering how some of that stuff doesn't even slow my stride any longer.  I've certainly got new challenges to face every day!  

I'm glad I posted those though, because I can look back at the beginning stages of my gardening projects and see where I had troubles.  Because as you get more experienced, you forget the hardships and the things that puzzled you early on.  And that could be why the master gardeners and laymen who have been gardening for decades who write so many of the gardening books out there tend to skip over the stuff that truly troubles the beginning gardener.  Because once you get some experience and successes and you develop a routine that works, all of those early frustrations fade away and you forget just how hard the little steps used to be.  

So, I want to do some updates to those early frustrations, documenting what I have done to get past them.  And maybe some day I can write a gardening book that will help those clueless beginners, just like I was and still continue to be! 


Happy gardening all!  Till next time.

Desert Rose in front of a Christmas Cactus