Picture Update.

Ah summertime. Time to weed, weed, weed, did I mention weed? Did that last weekend. Filled a trash can to the top. Yep. Weed season.
Now that that's done, time to plant the summer crops. But first, some pictures:

Dragon Fruit Flower! Our first. Isn't it amazing?

We have tons of caterpillars. Lots of butterflies too. This weekend, we counted 5 different kinds of caterpillars. We also have a couple of unidentified green and gold cocoons.

These guys are finishing off my fennel. I was going to compost it, but I decided to wait until they are done with it first. They are freaking HUGE caterpillars. Like my pinky-sized.

This is a collard green. One of the best things to grow because it continues to grow even as you harvest leaves. I think we had 5 batches before it was time to replant.

One harvest.

Some of my lovely orchids.

Now THESE are caterpillars!

Garden Update

The garden is flourishing and the kids are growing. But it leaves very little time for me to write sometimes. I'm making a commitment though to write a post at least once a week.

We have expanded the garden to a second much larger plot than the one I have photographed here before. We are growing crazy amounts of collard greens, potatoes, leeks and jackfruit trees. The trees are about a foot tall and will be going up on Craig's List shortly for sale. If you have never had a jackfruit, they are very strange and HUGE spiky fruits. The fruit itself tastes like a tropical fruit like mango with a citrusy sweetness and maybe even apple thrown in 'cause why not?

To eat it, one must cut the bastard open, wait for the glue (yes, glue. don't get any on ya) to seep out. You can use a towel to soak it up and then immediately wash the towel. Then you can take out these little pods and eat them.

The Girl Child did not want to try a piece. Daddy made her take a bite with much fuss and whining. She then ate up a whole bowl of them.

I have also harvested some eggplants. Made fried eggplant and Babaganoush (sp?). Tasty.
The tomatoes are coming in but the cut worms are making it hard to get any ripe whole ones. I have sprayed with neem oil, so hopefully that got the suckers.

We also have about a handful of strawberries almost daily. Maybe 4 or 5 raspberries. (Grow damn it!)

This past weekend we also had ripe starfruits. They will continue to ripen for a while so I can pull them off as needed. The tree is not even very tall yet but it is heavy with fruit.

The collard green plant is the best. I have made 4 batches of them and the plant barely looks touched. I wonder how long it will continue to grow in new leaves? The Little Guy LOVES these. He ate nothing but collards for dinner last night. He was staring at my plate too, like he was thinking, that better not be the last of it mom.

Finally bought some weed barrier. Looking to install this weekend, but I need more dirt first. I really don't like weeding. Annoying.

I also have a number of new seeds to plant. Carrots, lettuce, spinach, cucumbers and beans. I think the cold weather is probably behind us so it should be ok to get those going.

The new patch is not organic though. :-( Hubby put miracle grow soil in there.
I figure the herb patch can stay organic and the other will not be.

Invasion of the goat

I live across the street from Old McDonald. He has goats, chickens, cows, guinea hens, ducks, turkeys. Well, turkey (singular) now. The other one was too slow.


A few months back, there were guinea hens in our back yard. Probably eating up the smorgasbord of grubs and snails. And hubby let the dogs out not knowing they were there.

(I gentle refer to my hubby's dogs as Fatso, Stinky and the Old Man.)

Dogs give chase, busting through the gate. (literally, Fatso BROKE a wooden slate in half)

The chase was ON. Guinea fowl are FAST. They dove down the lane, under and over fences. Dogs in hot pursuit. The hens made it back to the farm ok but they had to pass by the turkeys to do so. I think you know where this is headed.

Fatso's mind: The tasty ones got away but I got the slow fat one instead.

So, only one turkey gobble gobbling over there now.


Anyway, the goats came to visit us last weekend.They fit under the fence and come over to munch on all the delicious un-mown grass on our neighbors side. I was weeding the veggy garden and removing the dead tomatoes when my son squeals and points at the goat.

I tell him it's just a goat. He mimics me and says GO! :Insert happy baby squeal:
I think it's great he's at least mimicking words. He's17 months old and not walking by himself yet or talking. Lots of noises though. So he likes the GO.

The GO felt that the toddler-thing was scary and hightailed back home.

My attention went from it to the tomato root in my hand that had a grub the size of a freaking quarter latched onto it.

I hate grubs. Yeah yeah, I know. I know. I should love earth's creatures and all that. I was going to just fling it to the grass and let it live but it committed suicide.

Hubby didn't believe me when I told him it committed suicide. But I SWEAR it jumped.

I need to go buy grub repellent and snail repellent and neem oil for the things eating my plants. How do people do this organic gardening thing? I do not have merely one or two issues, I have barrels full of snails eating my trees, giant voracious grubs under foot and black crude on my peppers, eggplant and beans.

I admit, I am envious of my friend D's miracle grow garden. She gave me an egg plant last week that was awesome and delicious.

But I do want my garden to stay pesticide and chemical free. People do this all the time. Just need a little extra work. Will be off to the Home Depot this weekend I guess.

I will get my kids to pile up the snails to show you the mass epidemic of snails going on over here.

If they were zombies, we'd be screwed.

Promised pictures

The palm frond pile:

Look how nice my fence line looks.

Now that you can see the size of the pile, imagine what the fence line looked like BEFORE.
No more fire/hurricane hazard. Totally prepared for hurricane Irene. (Therefore she chose not to come. Because as we all know, it's when you are not prepared that stuff happens.)

Looking at the photo, I think I need to trim a few more pieces so they do not trail over the fence.

I just had to take care of this, I could just see a fire starting in the underbrush, going up the wood post, across the cable line and onto my roof. Yeah, yeah, paranoid, I know. lol. But better safe than sorry. Also thought about snakes hiding in there.

Is it illegal to trim up a neighbor's property? Trespassing? Destruction of property?  I'm probably safe as long as I stay on my side.

Note to self: No going over to their side with a weed-wacker and grass-killer.

Second note to self: Think about buying weed-wacker as Christmas gift to neighbors.



The following weekend Hubby also got to mowing and edging, so yard looks super-fran-diferous.

I will leave you now with some art photos, via my daughter, budding photographer at  age 5:

Mexican Heathers

Thanks hun, needed a butt-shot.

Passion-fruit plant 

Her and kitty

Surprise

The dynamic in my house is such that I get to wake up at the ass crack of dawn... ok 7:00 is just a wee bit past the crack but still.... I occasionally get 20-30 minutes before my children realize I am awake. Then I feed them while I clean the house trying to ensure that they do not wake daddy or kill each other.

On this particularly not-yet-boiling morning, I decided to deal with my neighbor's palm trees while the kids play outside.
They have these massive palms lining our shared fence in the back yard. Their shit spills over my side constantly because they never do anything but mow their overgrown weed-patch, I mean garden... I should mention that said mowing only includes what the ride-on can hit. I get grass growing OVER my fence from areas the mower does not reach. They also have banana trees that keel over to die on my side. Oh and did I mention the flocks of pigeons?
I shouldn't judge, but it erks me when people dont care about the houses THEY bought. Don't want to mow? Don't want to take care of your plants, DON'T buy a FUCKING house! Get a condo. No maintenance.
Granted, they are freaking PRISTINE in comparison to the cat people across the street. Don't get me started.
So, on this fine morning I took my ladder and my clippers and made a beautiful-looking oasis. Well the view from MY side anyway. lol
I pulled years worth of dead palm fronds and cut back over growth to give these poor plants some breathing room. It looks awesome.

The most awesome part though? My husband waking up at the crack of noon to a massive pile of fronds in the back yard. Yeah, 4 hours bub! What do you think I do with 4 hours? lol.

I took pictures, but as usual, I left my phone at home. So you will need to imagine the four foot but, 10 by 12 pile of fronds.
Until tomorrow, when I will post some pictures.
Disclaimer: I'm not a curser. In real life, I am very nice. I swear. Only my care knows about my potty-mouth. Ok, and any potential followers of my blog now, I guess.



Tootles.



PS. spell check is busted.

Slacker-blogger returns

Take-2.
Spent time writing a blog and then when I hit post, it errored out and now I have to do it all over again. ARG.

Anyway, it's been almost a year since my last update (ee gads! Really?!?!) There have been lots of things going on, busy busy. Kids are growing like the weeds in my garden, as they are apt to do. Baby-boy is wanting to walk but he doesn't quite have it yet. Loves to watch mommy in her garden. Older darling girl would rather eat mommy's plants than help weed. lol. How many kids do you know that will eat herbs and green beans straight from the garden?

We have expanded the garden patch. (Thank you Hubby!) Due to the serious heat this summer, we also installed a tarp over the garden to help mitigate some of the heat that is burning up my veggies.

Those weed-like straggly things in the back are my tomatoes. The heat hit them hard but they are still green stems, so I think with the rain, they will come back to life soon.

Massive pile of oregano, 3 types of mint, an eggplant, 2 types of basil and 2 kinds of peppers. Off in the back left are a bunch to small cucumber plants.

Green and purple beans, chives, strawberries and a dying rosemary.

So far I have only been able to eat the herbs as nothing else has matured enough to eat. Tried a radish but is was REALLY sharp.

The new garden addition:

Radishes, sage, cilantro and fennel/coriander

Tomato sproutlings and watermelon

For the past year I have been trying to grow a papaya tree. I've tried seeds and bought 2 trees on separate occasions but they all kept dying. I was ready to give up and the green goddess came to my rescue. I would say that papaya started growing spontaneously but what really happened is I got a new composter and gave away my old one. In the place of the old composter, I suddenly had things sprouting up:

This is my pumpkin-papaya-dragon fruit plant!

The pumpkin has completely taken over the entire corner here and you can see the papaya in the middle with the dragon fruit behind it.

I also found a second papaya growing in the front yard in the same place that I had tried to plant trees two different times. Each time they died and composted the dead plants. Apparently, there must have remained something dormant underneath.

But come on! Coincidence or what? lol.

This weekend I will take some pictures of my orchard and share some bug stories.

Update

The recent downpours have drawn my attention to a serious fly in my soup. The roof is tipping all the rainwater right into my veggy garden! oh no! I now have a line of demarcation in the dirt and have lost a few seedlings.

The dragon fruit seeds are dead. :-(

I planted a number of other seeds in pots and am looking forward to seeing what sprouts.
This Friday I have a date with the Freecycler of Pompano. He or she is kindly sharing the extraneous plants in their garden. I will have many new lovelies to plant this weekend!

Happy Mabon indeed.

I'll have some pictures this weekend of progress.